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V" 



OVERBOARD WENT THE MACKEREL 







A CAPE COD BOY 



SOPHIE, SWETT 

A tt 

Author of “Captain Polly,” “ Flying Hill Farm,” etc. 



•• •••••••••• ••• 



ILLUSTRATED BY P. L. HOYT 



THE PENN PUBLISHING COMPANY 


PHILADELPHIA MCMI 




THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 
Two Copies Received 

MAY. 13 1901 

Copyright entry 




/& >9 of 

CLtfSsf^fcXc; No. 

:•? 

COPY B. 


Copyright 1901 by The Penn Publishing Company 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I A Business Bump 5 

II The Striped Marsh Affair 22 

III The Casting Away of the Delight 39 

IV A Great Haul 54 

V The Disgrace of the Little Portergee 68 

VI The Hasty Voyage of the Delight 87 

VII With Fate Against Him 108 

VIII The Derelict Delight 129 

IX The Waking Up of Scauscet 149 

X The Building Boom and the Bear 170 

XI Some Information about Mezul 193 

XII The Testing of the Bear 213 

XIII Gustavus Keeps the Bear 226 

XIV Emilio’s Trick 235 

XV The Cruise of the Alfarata 254 

XVI Manuel’s Mysterious Box 270 

XVII Another Scrape 287 

iii 




cA Cape Cod Boy 


CHAPTER I 

A BUSINESS BUMP 

“Times bein’ so hard, I can’t see my way- 
clear to keep that little Portergee through the 
winter,” said Cap’n ’Siali Doane, with a solemn 
shake of his gray head. 

And three hearts seemed to stand still ; they 
were sixteen-year-old Caddy’s, who was the 
housekeeper, and had knit the little “ Porter- 
gee’s ” winter supply of stockings and mittens 
as carefully as she had knit her own boys’, and 
young Josiali’s and little Israel’s, who had only 
truly enjoyed life since they had had a com- 
panion who knew as much of the great world 
as the geography and a fairy-book put together. 
For the little “ Portergee,” Manuel Silva, had 
been tossed upon the Cape Cod sands by a 

5 


6 


A CAPE COD BOY 


wreck, after cruising about in all the seas, and 
picking up sixteen years’ worth of knowledge in 
many lands. 

It was almost into the door-yard of Cap’n 
’Siah Doane’s weather-beaten cottage at the 
Point that he had been carried by a discrimi- 
nating wave ; and with a dislocated shoulder, 
and a wound on the head which, as Cap’n ’Siah 
declared, would have killed anything but a 
“ pesky little Portergee,” he stayed. 

There were summer visitors to Scauset, and he 
had done errands for them, and shared young 
Josiah’s jobs of fishing and clamming for the 
boarding-houses, and generally been “ worth his 
keep,” as Cap’n ’Siah carefully figured out, be- 
ing a thrifty and prudent soul. In fact, Scauset 
people generally thought that Cap’n ’Siah would 
have been better off if he had been less prudent 
and cautious. He wouldn’t take the least risk 
for fear of losing ; he would scarcely go fishing 
with a fair wind lest it should become a foul one 
before he came back, and he wouldn’t raise cran- 
berries lest The market should be over-supplied 
when he came to sell. 

“ Now God made things chancy to develop 
folks, and he made ’em chancier than common 


A BUSINESS BUMP 


7 


on Cape Cod/’ Uncle Saul Nickerson was always 
saying as a hint to Cap’n ’Siah. And little 
Israel had heard so much about his grand- 
father^ bump of caution that he thought it 
must mean the wen on the top of his bald 
head. 

In the winter there were no jobs in Scauset. 
Manuel had talked of going to Kingstown, where 
there were many of his race, to try to get a 
chance to sail with a Portuguese captain ; but 
they had all protested earnestly against his leav- 
ing, and little Israel had raised a mighty wail. 
Manuel said he never had struck a home port 
before, and it was evident that he longed with 
all his heart to stay. But with a hard winter 
before them Cap’n ’Siah’s bump of caution had 
got into working order, and he had made the 
dreadful announcement with which this story 
begins. 

They all looked at each other in consterna- 
tion ; and even Caddy, who had grown very 
sensible by having to look out for them all, felt 
a rush of tears to her eyes. 

At that very moment the little “ Portergee ” 
was digging his heels into the sand — which he 
did when he had on his thinking-cap as natu- 


8 


A CAPE COD BOY 


rally as a Yankee boy whistles — and saying to 
himself that he should immediately go away, it 
was so dull, if he didn’t feel as if he must stay 
and take care of these people who had been so 
kind to him. He meditatively tapped the top 
of his own thickly thatched head where the wen 
was on the Cap’n’s, and shook his head with sad 
significance. He, like little Israel, thought 
that wen was the bump of caution which kept 
Cap’n ’Siah from everything that was enter- 
prising. 

“ If I do not stay and take care of them they 
are los’ !” said the little “ Portergee ” to himself. 

But how? For a brave and enterprising 
spirit what opportunities had Scauset ? There 
was a shadow of discouragement upon even 
Manuers stout heart; but just then Hiram 
Tinker called to him from the dory in which 
he was putting in to shore. 

“ Seen the h errin’ ? Kingstown Harbor is 
cliockful 1 of ’em ! Greatest sight anybody ever 
see ! All the traps and seines and nets are full 
a’ready, and they’re gettin’ the cold-storage 
plants ready to take ’em in. Seems as if all the 
herrin’ in creation had drifted into Kingstown 
Harbor !” 


A BUSINESS BUMP 


9 


Manuel didn’t hear the last words; he was 
running around to the cove where Michael 
Fretas lived. Michael was Portuguese. He 
owned a small fishing boat, and Manuel had 
helped him to paint and letter her in the sum- 
mer. Manuel could paint straight letters — that 
is, nearly straight. Michael’s daughter, who 
taught school farther up the cape, had wished 
to name the vessel the Daylight ; but Manuel’s 
spelling of English was a little uncertain, and 
he made her the Delight instead. And Michael 
said he would not have it changed because 
Manuel was his friend and countryman. 

Michael was an old man, and his daughters 
sent him money, and he now never used his 
fishing- boat in the winter, but no one had ever 
been able to hire it, and Manuel’s eager face 
was clouded with doubt as he ran around to 
Michael’s house in the cove. 

They were still talking about sending him 
away, Cap’n ’Siah insisting, and Caddy and the 
others remonstrating with tears, when Manuel 
burst into the living-room and poured out the 
story of the great catch of herring in Kings- 
town Harbor. The doubt was all gone from his 
face now, and the eagerness was like a flame. 


10 


A CAPE COD BOY 


“You don’t say ! Seems as if we’d ought to 
get a couple of barrels to salt ; or, if they’re 
plenty as you say, some to fertilize the garden. 
But there ! we liain’t got anything but a row- 
boat, and we can’t. Such chances ain’t for poor 
folks,” and Cap’n ’Siah sighed heavily. 

“ I am going — in the Delight. We want 
barrels, empty barrels, and all must go — all !” 
cried Manuel, breathlessly. 

“ The Delight ! How come Michael to let you 
have her?” demanded Cap’n ’Siah ; but Manuel 
and young Josiah were already rolling empty 
barrels down to the slip, and Caddy was putting 
up a basket of provisions, and essaying at the 
same time the difficult task of buttoning little 
Israel into his thick jacket while he turned a 
somersault. 

They were on board the Delight, with nets 
and barrels, with Jo Fretas, Michael’s nephew, 
slightly infirm of wit but strong of body, to 
help, and the sails were spread to a favoring 
breeze, when Cap’n ’Siah was discovered, hurry- 
ing as fast as he could, and shouting to them to 
wait. 

“ I expect it won’t cost me nothin’ to see 
what’s goin’ on. Anyhow, I sha’n’t pay for the 


A BUSINESS BUMP 


11 


boat !” he said, as he came on board. “ How 
come he to let you have her ?” 

But now Manuel was running back to the 
house. When he returned he offered no expla- 
nation, but Caddy caught sight of the rough 
little checker-board that he had made, tucked 
under his pea-jacket, and heard the rattle of 
the wooden checker-men in his pocket. 

Cap’n ’Siali was extremely fond of a game of 
checkers ; but it was only a short sail to Kings- 
town, and there was no danger of being be- 
calmed, and on a trip that promised so much 
excitement who would think of checkers? 

Caddy even remembered the blow on the 
head which it had once been feared would injure 
Manuel’s reasoning faculties. If Manuel should 
prove to be foolish, her grandfather must not 
send him away ! They would take care of him 
always ! So thought Caddy, with a dry sob in 
her throat. 

Not the half had been told about the herring. 
Since the world began Kingstown had never 
seen her harbor packed with fish like this. The 
waves tossed them upon the wharves, into the 
baskets and barrels of those who had no nets, 
at the very feet of the vagrant Kingstown cats, 


12 


A CAPE COD BOY 


who, for lack of rod and line, had been forced 
to haunt the fish-houses. 

The herring had only just appeared, but it 
was estimated that when all appliances were 
ready a thousand barrels a day could be taken. 

They worked with a will, all the little party 
from Porcupine Point, even Cap’n ’Siah, 
although he grumbled that herring wouldn’t be 
worth nothing, there were so many, and that 
the Delight would surely sink if they loaded her 
so heavily, and that they could never get salt 
enough to salt so many herring, and if they ate 
so many they should be like pin-cushions before 
spring. 

There had been a fair wind to carry them 
down to Kingstown, and in returning they 
were forced to beat. 

“ But there’s going to be a change,” said 
Manuel, surveying the heavens with a sailor’s 
practiced eye, “ and after we get round the 
Point ’twill be all right.” 

That was when they were making their way 
out of Kingstown Harbor, and little Israel was 
shouting with wonder at the herring which 
sometimes seemed like a great wall, through 
which the Delight pushed her bow slowly. 


A BUSINESS BUMP 


13 


“Round the Point ?” echoed young Josiah 
and Caddy, wonderingly ; and Caddy thought 
again of the blow on the head that had been 
enough to kill anything but a “ Portergee.” 

And Manuel, growing suddenly pale, and 
showing new, strong lines in his sharp little 
sixteen-year-old face, beckoned them impres- 
sively aft — yet not so far aft as to be overheard 
by Jo Fretas, who was at the helm. Cap’n 
’Siah was watching the herring with little Israel, 
and saying, “ I vum ! I never see so much of 
anything in my life, without ’twas sand.” 

Manuel had to use persuasion when he di- 
vulged his plan, chiefly with Caddy, who had 
inherited some of her grandfather’s caution, and 
who had never been to Boston, fifty miles away, 
in her life. 

Young Josiah had demurred but little, and 
that only — as in a candid moment he afterwards 
confessed to Manuel — because he hadn’t planned 
it. As for young Josiah’s being afraid, like 
Caddy — catch him ! 

Caddy was afraid little Israel would be sea- 
sick, and was sure that her grandfather would 
jump overboard, but Manuel tapped the top of 
his head significantly, and upon second thought 


14 


A CAPE COD BOY 


Caddy decided that his bump of caution would 
be likely to prevent that. 

And at last, when the Point was already in 
sight, Caddy, with her chin looking pretty 
square, as young Josiah said, called her grand- 
father to come down into the Delight’s very 
small cabin and play checkers. 

Cap’n Josiah came with alacrity, for he could 
never get checker-playing enough ; moreover, 
the wind was growing fresh, and it was chilly 
on deck. He said maybe there would be time 
for a game before they got home, and Manuel 
was a good little “ Portergee ” to think of the 
board. 

“ Let him beat ! Make him beat ! Play like 
fox !” whispered Manuel to Caddy, as she fol- 
lowed her grandfather into the cabin. 

And the Delight rounded the Point and found 
a more favoring wind, as Manuel had predicted, 
and the little weather-beaten house on the shore 
was left desolate and alone, with the early 
shadows of the November afternoon closing 
in upon it ; while Cap’n ’Siah hilariously beat 
Caddy at checkers, and quite forgot that it 
was time they should be at home. When Caddy 
was forced to light a lamp in the little cabin he 



“ PLAY LIKE A FOX ” 






V 


A BUSINESS BUMP 


15 


sprang to his feet and demanded, in great ex- 
citement, where that “ pesky little Portergee " 
was letting the vessel drift to. 

Manuel appeared in the doorway to explain, 
with young Josiali looking over his shoulder — 
although young Josiah was but thirteen, he was 
taller than Manuel — and with little Israel's 
beaming face thrust forward between his knees. 

“ It is not Portuguese like Jo Fretas and me 
who let the vessel drift. To navigate is in our 
blood, like the great Colombo !" Manuel drew 
his spiderlike little figure up as tall as he possi- 
bly could. “ We carry the first herring to Bos- 
ton ; the very first, because the others have 
wait to load more. There is fair wind, and the 
moon will shine bright ; before morning we shall 
be there. To carry you off was disrespect, and 
I lament him. ,, Manuel removed his small cap 
and bowed profoundly. “ But you are known 
there in Boston as great ship-master ; you have 
license to sell these many years." 

Cap'n 'Siah sat down and mopped his brow. 

“ I was consid'able well known up there be- 
fore things went wrong, and I got so kind of 
discouraged," he admitted. “ But you — you're a 
terrible resky little Portergee !" 


16 


A CAPE COD BOY 


Manuel drew a breath that made his small 
chest heave ; it was going to he all right with 
Cap’n ’Siah, whom he did not fear, but loved. 

“ The disrespect I lament him,” he repeated, 
anxiously, “ but the wind so fair, and to be the 
first in with the herring, and the Delight so 
comfortable, with bunks for every one except 
Jo and me, who have known life, and are con- 
tent with coils of rope !” 

“ How come he to let you have the vessel ?” 
asked Cap’n ’Siah, abruptly. 

“ Michael Fretas he is my friend and country- 
man, ” answered Manuel, evasively. 

There was all the moonlight that Manuel had 
promised, and the wind held instead ‘of going 
down at nightfall, as it so often does ; in fact, 
it made the waves so rough that as they drew 
near Boston Light little Israel was very sea- 
sick, and even Caddy had a qualm. But who 
remembered that when the Delight thrust her 
sharp little nose between the larger vessels that 
lay at T wharf, in the murky morning light? 
Little Israel felt that life had suddenly turned 
into a fairy-story, and young Josiah, and even 
Caddy, had little doubt that the family fortunes 
were made. 


' A BUSINESS BUMP 


17 


Alas and alas ! T wharf was piled with bar- 
rels of herring ! On an adjoining wharf was a 
small mountain of the fish, as they had been 
shoveled from a schooner ! The great catch had 
begun to reach the Boston market in the steamer 
that got in the night before, and in two or three 
large schooners that could take all the wind out 
of the little Delight’s sails ! 

“ Why hadn’t you listened to me and kept 
from such foolhardy pranks ?” cried Cap’ll ’Siah, 
in angry despair. “ Here we be, likely to be 
becalmed, and not get home for a week, with a 
cargo that’s good for nothing but to heave over- 
board, and no victuals to eat !” 

Little Israel gave way to despair at this dread- 
ful prospect and set up a mighty roar. Caddy 
thought it was better, after all, to have a bump 
of caution ; and young Josiah, with red rims 
appearing around his eyes, as they always did 
when he was frightened, looked inquiringly at 
the leader of the enterprise. 

“It is so — as I have hardly thought it possi- 
ble — the market is glut !” said the leader, calmly, 
but with a sharp line between his tensely drawn 
brows. 

“ Little mites of herring, too ! Look how big 
2 


18 


A CAPE COD BOY 


them are !” Cap’n ’Siah pointed to the barrels 
nearest them on the wharf. 

“ He told me to pick ’em out small !” said 
young Josiah, in an aggrieved tone, for his faith 
in the leader had begun to waver. 

The color leaped suddenly into Manuel’s 
sharp, thin little face. 

“ It is true they are small ; one must provide 
a little for the evil day, even when one shall not 
think the market will be glut ! I go, but I will 
be back again by-and-by !” 

He made his way swiftly through the crowd 
of clamoring fisli-dealers, with which the wharf 
was already alive, and in the long avenue that 
led to the street he disappeared from their 
sight. 

“ That’s the last we shall ever see of that tarnal 
little Portergee !” said Cap’n ’Siah. 

But after the Cap’n had threatened to throw 
the herring overboard, to sell them for enough 
to buy a breakfast, and never to pay for the 
boat, Caddy had given way to tears in com- 
pany with little Israel, and young Josiah had 
permitted himself to express a preference for 
Yankees, Manuel came walking across the plank 
to the Delight, his small brown face aglow. 


A BUSINESS BUMP 


19 


A man came with him, well-dressed and 
with a business-like air, but dark-skinned and 
with ear-rings. Manuel introduced him proudly 
as his friend and countryman, Jose Maces, fore- 
man of the great canning factory in Street. 

He would buy the little herring ; it was of them 
that sardines were made in his factory. 

“ It is why I have choose the small ones,” 
Manuel explained, serenely. 

But it was not until Cap’n ’Siah saw the bar- 
rels loaded upon a great dray, with the name of 
Jose Maces’ firm upon it, that he could believe 
the good fortune. 

They all had to count the money over twice ; 
it seemed too much to be true ; and little Israel 
bit and rung the silver pieces. Then Manuel 
made them go to a restaurant on Atlantic 
Avenue to breakfast, and although Cap’n ’Siah 
thought it was reckless extravagance, he mur- 
mured all the way that Manuel was a “ dreadful 
cute little Portergee.” At the restaurant he 
met two sea-captains who were old friends, and 
had so good a time that he forgot how reckless 
it all was. 

But when the Delight had set sail for her 
homeward voyage he grew silent and dejected. 


20 


A CAPE COD BOY 


He wished he had a vessel he owned ; the old 
captains had told him that he ought to go 
sanding ; that there was money in it. 

“ But the Delight ! She will he so good a 
vessel for that,” said Manuel, calmly. “ It is 
true that I have contracts with the canning 
factory to deliver many herring — and mackerel, 
too, in their season ; but there will be times — 
oh, plenty, until we buy another boat, to use her 
for the sanding, too !” 

“ What in nater are you talking about ? Don’t 
you know that Michael Fretas won’t lend his 
boat?” growled Cap’n ’Siah. 

“ The Delight she begin to-day to be mine. 
I agree to pay the first installment from the 
herring money ; after that it will be easy, and — 
the disrespect I lament him — but if you would 
share in the business — and afterwards young 
Josiah — and with Mees Caddy to keep the home 
port snug — ” Manuel took off his old cap, with 
one of his beautiful bows. 

“ And I thought of letting you go away,” said 
Cap’n ’Siali, with something between a growl 
and a sob in his throat. 

“ Oh, but I should not — nevair !” cried Man- 
uel, his little peaked face alight. “ You that 


A BUSINESS BUMP 


21 


have been so good and make true home for me, 
should I leave you to take care of yourself?” 

Cap’n ’Siali’s great grizzly chin actually quiv- 
ered ; he threw back his head and laughed to 
hide it. “ If you ain’t the all-firedest little Por- 
tergee !” he said. 


CHAPTER II 


THE STRIPED MARSH AFFAIR 

“So long as reading writing and ’rithmetic 
can’t be painted into folks I ain’t goin’ to sign a 
petition to ’propriate money to paint the school- 
liouse.” Cap’n ’Siali Doane seated himself more 
firmly astride the wood-pile, and returned a 
folded paper to Cap’n Seba Oakes without a 
glance. Cap’n Seba prodded with his wooden 
leg in the sand, always a very good sign that he 
was in danger of losing his temper. 

“ Porkypine P’int liain’t got the name of 
bein’ enterprisin’,” he said, candidly, “ but I 
thought maybe, sence you’d got that little Por- 
tergee that ’pears to be middlin’ smart, tradin’ 
up to Boston, and all — ” 

“ He ain’t sixteen yet, but I calculate lie’s 
smart enough to know that tradin’s bread and 
butter, and paintin’ school-houses ain’t,” said 
Cap’n ’Siah, dryly. 

22 


THE STRIPED MARSH AFFAIR 


23 


“ Is it to paint tlie school-house? Oh, we will 
help to paint him, will we not ?” cried an eager 
voice, and from the wood-slied appeared the 
“ little Portergee.” He took the paper from 
Cap’n Seba and looked it over with the deter- 
mined frown between his brows with which he 
always encountered written English. “ Say 
that we will help !” He laid his small, nervous, 
dark-skinned hand appealingly upon Cap’n 
’Siah’s great horny one. “ Shall it be say, when 
people go by in ships, that the Scauset school- 
house are like old fish, with his scales peel off 
in the sun? It is I, Manuel Silva, who will 
sign the paper, if you will give me leave.” 

“ La, sonny, you can sign it if you’re a mind 
to ; your signin’ ain’t of no great account, one 
way or t’other,” said Cap’n ’Siah. But his fond 
pride in Manny showed in every crease of his 
weather-beaten face. “ I’ve kind of fell into the 
habit of lettin’ Manny do about as he’s a mind 
to,” he added to Cap’n Seba, with a little uneasy 
shuffle, as if he were ashamed of his weakness. 
“ He seems to have a way of lightin’ on his feet. 
And lie’s a square little fellow. When he ’grees 
to do a thing, you can depend on his doing his 
best.” 


24 


A CAPE COD BOY 


Manny dug bis small bare feet into the sand 
to brace liimself to an erect position. 

“ I, Manuel Silva, will help tbe town to do 
it.” His small, dark face glowed. “ In that 
school tbe arithmetic go into me here.” Man- 
uel tapped bis forehead. “And now tbe fish- 
peddlers at the Boston wharves no more can 
cheat me. Till they are pale and tremble do I 
reckon up !” 

“Now, Manny, don’t you go to puttin’ down 
nothin’ resky,” implored Cap’n ’Siah. “You’ve 
had your ups and downs, and the Delight ain’t 
all paid for yet.” 

Manuel had worked manfully with his stump 
of a pencil, the wrinkle deep between Ids brows. 

“All I have put down is this ; surely you will 
not think it too much when the arithmetic is 
put into me there ?” — he looked appealingly at 
Cap’n ’Siah — “ Manuel Silva will do his 
quarter.” 

The two old captains looked at each other and 
laughed. 

“La, let it go! Like enough they won’t 
make head or tail of it ; he means his part,” said 
Cap’n ’Siali, aside. 

Cap’n Seba hobbled off, his wooden leg mak- 


THE STRIPED MARSH AFFAIR 


25 


ing the sand fly, and Manuel fell to chopping 
wood with a will, to avoid discouraging conver- 
sation with Cap’ll ’Siah. He felt within him- 
self a dismayed doubt as to how he was to do 
his “ quarter ” towards the painting of the 
school-house, and redeem Porcupine Point from 
its reputation as the mean end of the town. 
Chopping wood was good to give one an idea, 
even better than whittling, Manuel thought, 
although he had taken to the latter like a born 
Yankee ; but no new way would it now help 
him to devise to earn a few honest pennies for 
the painting of the school-house. He was strol- 
ling down the lane that night after supper whit- 
tling the toughest pine knot he could find, in 
search of a plan, when he heard young Gusta- 
vus Nickerson shouting to him. 

Young Gustavus stood upon a sand dune, his 
small, stocky figure outlined against the sunset 
sky, and pointed down towards the Striped 
Marsh. 

“ Whale ! Whale come ashore on the Striped 
Marsh beach !” he shouted. 

Now on his first arrival in Scauset there had 
been many jokes and tricks played upon the 
little Portergee — a matter made easy by his ig- 


26 


A CAPE COB BOY 


norance of the Cape speech and customs, and 
Manuel thought that young Gustavus was now 
attempting something in that line. 

“ Can’t fool this Portergee now !” he said to 
himself, with satisfaction. 

“ Big one !” shouted young Gustavus, and 
looking in the direction # of his outstretched 
chubby fist, Manuel saw a huge black bulk 
lying just where the grayness of the Striped 
Marsh beach joined the gray ness of the low- 
down twilight sky. 

Now whales in the great deep were common 
to Manuel’s sailor experience, but a whale tossed 
upon Scauset’s tame and sandy shores ! — that 
was an event, and an event was something for 
quick wits to turn to account. 

Manuel’s spidery legs made quick work of the 
space that lay between him and the Striped 
Marsh’s sands. 

It was a big fish and the cruel harpoon that 
had done its work — whether slowly or quickly, 
or in what far-off seas, no one could say — was 
still sticking in its side. 

The equinoctial storm had been raging for 
several days, and there had been fierce winds 
and high tides, and the great creature had been 


THE STRIPED MARSH AFFAIR 


27 


carried over Porcupine Ledge and over tlie 
shoals, and landed high and dry upon the sands. 

“ I’m goin’ to tell the fellers !” shouted young 
Gustavus. 

Manuel shook his head at him with great 
violence, and then beckoned imperatively. Gus- 
tavus slid down the dune, and arrived on the 
beach covered with sand and shining in the 
sunset like a small granite pillar. He found 
Manuel in an inverted position, his heels wav- 
ing wildly in the air ; a great idea often had an 
effect like this upon him. But he always 
turned his somersaults in private, and he now 
came upright with a little embarrassment? 
which, however, was soon lost in eagerness. 

“We will rope him in ! Speak not of him 
for your life!” He hooked the small Gustavus, 
as if he were a fish, with his forefinger under 
the collar of his flannel blouse. “ No one has 
seen it — is so far out of the way. They will 
come to see when we advertise big whales ! We 
charge ten cents admission inside the rope, 
children half price, no deadhead, no compli- 
ment !” 

The twinkling black eyes of the small Gus- 
tavus dilated. 


28 


A CAPE COB BOY 


“ Is it your land V 9 he asked, for the Cape 
mind, even in youth, foresees quickly a possible 
difficulty. Manny wrinkled his brow anxiously 
and paced off the land with careful strides. 

“ It is our land ; the turtle rock is the 
boundary !” he said, with a clearing brow and a 
long sigh of relief, as he pointed to the one 
small rock that raised itself from the sand. 
“ Cap’n ’Siah will give me leave, and we will 
rope in the whale, and with the money we get 
we will paint the school-house ! It is Porcupine 
Point that will paint him, all itself !” 

The small Gustavus’s face fell slightly ; a 
wild vision of unlimited peanuts and candy had 
appeared before him when this money-making 
scheme was proposed ; he turned from it reluc- 
tantly at the claims of public spirit. 

“ Everybody will know that we painted the 
school-house, won’t they ?” he said, comforting 
himself manfully. 

“ Yes, and you shall take the money at the 
door — the rope,” said Manuel, encouragingly ; 
for he understood that when one is small there 
may be moments when manly pride and the joy 
of performing a manly part in the world are 
less satisfactory than peanuts. 


THE STRIPED MARSH AFFAIR 


29 


They went at once to secure Cap’n ’Siah’s 
permission to rope in the whale. They did not 
even linger to take a complete survey of the 
prize, which did not in all points satisfy Gus- 
tavus’s ideas of a proper “jography” whale. 
But it was so large that he thought the admis- 
sion should be fifteen cents instead of ten, as 
Manuel proposed ; size being as every one 
knows, the essential thing in a whale. 

“ A whale ?” repeated Cap’n ’Siali, when 
Manuel had, with a breathless eagerness quite 
unusual to him, told of the wonderful flotsam. 
“ There hain’t nobody been foolin’ you, has 
there ?” Cap’n ’Siali was reading the Patriot, 
with a candle in his hand. He pushed his 
great steel-bowed spectacles high up on his 
seamy forehead. “ You want to rope in the 
Striped Marsh beach? Good nater! what do 
you want to do that for? You ain’t layin’ 
claim to the Atlantic Ocean, be you ?” 

Manuel explained, in the soft, slow voice that 
did not disguise his eagerness, that he meant to 
paint the school-house with the whale. 

When his somewhat slow perceptions had 
really taken in the whale, Cap’n ’Siah’s eyes 
twinkled. 


30 


A CAPE COD BOY 


“ Land sakes ! Whale oil is good for con- 
sid’able many things, but I never heard of 
making it into paint ! Well there ! go ’long and 
rope in what you’re a mind to. But look a- 
here !” he called, as Manny turned hastily away 
lest, as sometimes happened with Cap’ n ’Siali, 
the permission should be revoked. “ Don’t you 
go to gettin’ yourself or me into any kind of 
trouble. You ain’t so smart but what there’s 
consid’able many things you’ve got to learn 
yet!” 

The little Portergee’s face reddened with in- 
dignation. Get them into trouble, indeed ! As 
if he didn’t know better than that ! 

“ There’s a sight of whales in the Lord 
A’mighty’s great deep, and a good many Cape 
Cod folks have seenem,” continued Cap’ll ’Siah. 
“ Mebbe they’re goin’ to pay their hard earnin’s 
to see one, but I ain’t so sure of it.” 

“You hain’t got any rope!” remarked 
Gustavus. “ It will take a lot.” 

“ I’m going over to the rope-walk to get 
some,” said Manuel. 

“ Over beyond Tooraloo ? Eight miles? It 
won’t be any use to rope him in after everybody 
has seen him,” said Gustavus, anxiously. 


THE STRIPED MARSH AFFAIR 


31 


“ To-night,” Manuel said. 

“ Rope costs a lot,” pursued young Gustavus, 
with the practical mind. 

“ You’re only small ; you’d better go home,” 
said the little Portergee, the nervous tremor in 
his voice showing why he was cruel. Then, re- 
penting, he threw his arm about the younger 
boy’s shoulders. “ The rope-man knows me ; I 
have buy of him rope for the "Delight, my boat. 
I hope he trust me. Now you tell nobody of 
the whale ! I wake you up with pebble in 
the morning, and together we will rope him 
in!” 

Young Gustavus was dreaming that, instead 
of trusting Manuel, the rope-maker had hung 
him, and was about to hang him also, while the 
whale stood up very tall upon his tail and 
looked on approvingly, when there came a rattle 
of sand against the window, and there, in the 
dim light of the early morning, stood Manuel, 
with a wheelbarrow piled high with rope. 

“ The stakes to drive in they are all down 
there at the beach,” he said ; and young Gusta- 
vus, looking at him admiringly, saw that his 
small, dark face was grimed with dirt and per- 
spiration. But he was not too tired to drive 


32 


A CAPE COD BOY 


stakes. Gustavus, too, worked with all his 
small might. 

Caddy appeared unexpectedly with break- 
fast — that was just like Caddy — and young 
Josiah and little Israel, her brothers, the 
latter struggling with an unworthy envy of the 
discoverer of the whale. 

“ I have to tell them about it,” Manuel ex- 
plained to his partner. “ I stay with them, and 
they are now my people. I do all to take care 
of them that are so good to me. The good Cap’n 
’Siah, though he have bump of caution so tall ” 
— Manuel held his hand above his thickly 
thatched poll to the height of Cap’n ’Siali’s 
wen — “ he only laugh about the whale, though 
he say not to get ourselves into trouble. How, 
indeed, should we get ourselves into trouble ?” 
And Manuel laughed light-heartedly. 

He laughed again when Caddy warned him 
not to drive the stakes near Asher Baker’s cran- 
berry-meadow, which adjoined the Striped 
Marsh ; as if he had not measured with care. 

He and Caddy together had printed the let- 
ters on the great placard to be placed outside the 
rope, and on the small ones to be posted every- 
where about the village, Manuel had not been 


THE STRIPED MARSH AFFAIR 


33 


so confident of his own powers in that line since 
he had painted a boat’s name “ Delight ” for 
“ Daylight.” The placards set forth that a large 
whale was on exhibition on the Striped Marsh 
beach, the proceeds to be devoted to the painting 
of the Scauset school-house. 

Caddy wished to call the whale a grampus on 
the bills, a name she had found in the diction- 
ary, but yielded to the practical view of young 
Gustavus that if you didn’t call things by their 
right names the fellers might say it was a cheat. 

Would people come to the show? There was 
scarcely a half-hour of doubt after those bills 
had announced it ! Striped Marsh beach was far 
from the main road, and few vessels passed inside 
Porcupine Ledge, so that neither by sea nor by 
land had the whale as yet been discovered. 

They came at first by twos and threes, then by 
dozens, in swarms — men, women, and children ! 
It is not every day that anything happens in 
Scauset, and there was a vacation because the 
leaky roof of the schooi-liouse was being re- 
paired ; it was that which had raised the ques- 
tion of painting. 

They came from Scauset and Barnsteeple 
and Welford ; they came until, inside the rope 


34 


A CAPE COD BOY 


and outside the sea, there was not space to hold 
them ! And Jo Fretas, friend and compatriot 
of Manuel’s, went to Kingstown in the Delight 
and brought excursionists to the show. No 
u deadhead ” or “ compliment,” either ; if that 
rule was not so rigidly adhered to but that some 
old iron, a very ancient gun, and some dilapi- 
dated jack-knives were received as entrance- 
fees, why, that was only in the cases of intimate 
friends in extremely embarrassed circumstances. 

At the end of three days — when there was a 
painful necessity that the whale should be sold 
to a man from the rendering-works who would 
give ten dollars for it — there were forty dollars, 
chiefly in dimes and nickels, in Caddy’s old 
coffee-canister, lent for the occasion, and in the 
little Portergee’s breeches pocket ! The ten 
dollars paid for the whale Manuel felt should 
belong to young Gustavus, who had been its 
discoverer, but that young person and his 
parents insisted that it should also go towards 
the painting of the school-house. Cap’n Seba 
Oakes had offered to buy the rope at first cost 
for his son-in-law’s vessel, so there were fifty 
dollars for the painting of the school-house ! 
And Person Green, the painter, whose price 


THE STRIPED MARSH AFFAIR 


35 


was sixty dollars, caught the prevailing public 
spirit aroused by the little Portergee, and 
offered to do the painting for fifty. 

And every one was patting Manuel on the 
back, and Cap’n ’Siali’s very wrinkles radiated 
pride as he admitted that he was “ some smart 
for a little Portergee.” 

Alas and alas ! On the very day when Per- 
son Green set up a scaffolding around the 
school-house to begin the painting, Asher Baker 
came home from Rockton, where he had been 
to try to sell to the shoe-manufacturers his 
pegging-machine that wouldn’t peg. He was 
always inventing machines that wouldn’t work 
— to get rid of working himself, his neighbors 
said. 

“ Cap’n ’Siali to Asher Baker, Dr. To 
Damiged Cranbries, all Trompled over to See 
the Wale to Ten barils at six Dollars a Baril — 
$60 ! ! !” 

That was the bill which Asher Baker pre- 
sented within two hours of his return. Cap’n 
’Siah turned pale even to the wen on the top of 
his head when he read the bill, and Manuel 
grew scarlet. He stammered that no stakes had 
been driven on Asher Baker's land, that, as 


36 


A CAPE COD BOY 


every one knew, Asher Baker never picked his 
cranberries; he never flooded them to protect 
them from the frost, or barricaded them from 
the high tides ; that he said they were a poor 
kind. But being excited, Manuel lost his grip 
of English, and made but little impression on 
Cap’ll ’Siali. 

“ I’ve been tellin’ you what you’d come to 
’long of your foolhardiness,” scolded Cap’n 
’Siali, shrilly. “ You’re a hilter-skilter little 
Portergee, without a mite nor a grain of sense, 
and ’tain’t any more than was to be expected 
that you’d get me into diffikilty !” 

Young Gustavus Nickerson pulled at Manuel’s 
jacket from behind, setting up a mighty roar. 

“ Have we got to be shet in jail till we’ve paid 
it all up, and ain’t we goin’ to paint the school- 
house nor nothin’ ?” Manuel tore himself away 
and disappeared behind the wood-shed. He 
could bear everything but young Gustavus’s 
wail. The neighbors conferred long together, 
with sighs and head-shakings and sympathy for 
Cap’n ’Siali, though he “ hadn’t ought to ’a’ been 
took in by a little furriner like that.” 

Their voices reached the ears of Manuel, who 
was having a rather bad time behind the wood- 


THE STRIPED MARSH AFFATR 


37 


shed — a worse time even than when he had 
found that all the herring-boats were in ahead 
of him at the Boston wharves. But suddenly 
he was seen to run very fast down the road. 

“ There ! He’s runnin’ away with the 
money ! You won’t never see him again !” 
cried Cap’ll Seba Oakes, and he was so excited 
that his wooden leg seemed likely to run away 
all by itself. 

Cap’n ’Siah stood very erect, though he trem- 
bled and wiped his bald head. “ No, he ain’t 
runnin’ away,” he said, almost solemnly ; “ he 
ain’t that kind of a little Portergee.” 

There was a lawyer at Kingstown who be- 
friended Manuel Silva’s countrymen, of whom 
there were many in the town. Before nightfall 
Manuel had confided to him his difficulty, and 
received a little information without which he 
had not thought it jirudent to carry out a plan 
that had occurred to him. The result was that 
the next day there were cranberry-pickers on 
Asher Baker’s meadow engaged by Manuel 
Silva, who had paid Asher’s bill against the 
town — Michael Fretas, Jo’s uncle, had lent ten 
dollars — and received an extra written assur- 
ance from Asher that he had no further claim 


38 


A CAPE COD BOY 


upon the “ trompled ” cranberries. “ If you can 
get enough for a pie, why, I don’t begrudge 
you,” Asher had added, delighted at his own 
shrewdness. 

The Delight went to Boston with nine barrels 
of cranberries and a fair wind. There was a 
friend of Manuel’s in Boston, the foreman of 
the canning-establishment where he sold his 
herring, who knew the market, and the cran- 
berries sold for eight dollars and a half a barrel. 

Nine times eight and a half ! All that money, 
except Michael Fretas’s ten dollars, for the 
school-house, for the cranberry-pickers were 
Porcupine Point boys and girls who were eager 
to do the work for the school-house. 

It paid for putting a belfry on it, too, and 
then — what do you think? The town fathers 
voted to have a bell ! They were not going to 
be outdone in local pride by a little “ furriner ” 
like that ! 

Cap’n ’Siah strutted about a good deal, even 
his bald head beaming with delight; when 
people praised Manuel’s “ smartness,” he ad- 
mitted modestly that he was “ a public-spirited 
little Portergee.” 


CHAPTER III 


THE CASTING AWAY OF THE DELIGHT 

“What’s that little Portergee of yourn up 
to, now times are so dull ?” inquired Cap’ll Seba 
Oakes, sitting with Cap’n ’Siali I)oane upon 
the wood-pile and prodding the sand gloomily 
with the wooden appendage, not unlike an in- 
verted base-ball bat, which served him fora leg. 
Times were, indeed, dull at Scauset ; both the 
stocking factory and the glass factory, a little 
further up the cape, had shut down ; the mar- 
ket was glutted with the fish to be found near 
home ; there had been great storms, and some 
of those who had tried their luck as far off as 
the Grand Banks, alas ! would never come home. 

Manuel, who was nearly seventeen now, 
was certainly not to be relied upon for great 
wisdom in anxious times. He had, however, a 
sturdy courage, and he had shown, unexpect- 
edly now and then, what Cap’n ’Siah called, 

39 


40 


A CAPE COD BOY 


with modest pride, a little streak o’ common 
sense that had won the not too lightly given 
Cape Cod respect. There was real interest in 
Cap’n Seba’s tone as he inquired what the little 
“ Portergee ” was “ up to.” 

“ Manny, lie’s mackerelin’.” Cap’n ’Siah gave 
a little hitch to each of his trousers legs pre- 
paratory to sitting down on the side of his row- 
boat, pulled up to the wood-slied for repairs. 
“ The market’s glutted, but he keeps right at it. 
You see, the Delight is so terrible fishy that 
the summer folks wont go sailin’ in her nohow. 
Fact is, he’d ought to keep her fer one thing or 
t’other, and there ain’t enough of one thing or 
t’other so’s’t he can afford to. But he ain’t dis- 
couraged — or, if he is, he don’t say nothing 
about it.” 

To say nothing about it when he was dis- 
couraged was a habit of Manny’s, and an un- 
commonly good habit it is, too. 

“ It don’t appear to be our app’inted way to 
have any smooth sailin’ in this world,” said 
Cap’n Seba, dolefully. “ If your boat don’t 
run kerchunk ag’in’ a rock, why, there ain’t no 
market for your fish when you get ’em.” 

“ Manny calc’lates he’s got such big mackerel 


THE CASTING AWAY OF THE DELIGHT 41 


that they’re bound to sell,” said Cap’ll ’Siali. 
“ He won’t never give in, Manny won’t. He’s 
got ’em all barrelled up with ice, and he’s ter- 
rible afraid that that bank of fog bangin’ off 
there to the east’ard will liender him from get- 
tin’ off by daylight to-morrow mornin’.” 

“ Fog is a resky thing to calc’late on,” said 
Cap’n Seba, solemnly shaking his head. 

“ Manny he’s plannin’ to take ’em all up to 
Boston agin,” said Cap’n Siah, twitching his 
trousers legs in an embarrassed manner, and 
avoiding his friend’s eye, “ It’s terrible foolish 
and light-minded. They never thought of 
going till that time of the great herring catch, 
when he carried me off, too, unbeknownst.” 
Cap’n ’Siah took off his hat, looking curiously 
shamefaced, and proud and delighted, too. 
“ ’Twas a smart thing to sell them little her- 
ring for sardines after the market was over- 
stocked. Ever since that time they’ve had 
a notion of goin’ to Boston ag’in, young 
Josiah and Israel and Caddy — Caddy, that’s 
seventeen, and always been real sensible. 
Manny he argys that it will take a considerable 
while for him to sell them big mackerel to the 
best advantage, and ’twill be a good chance for 


42 


A CAPE COD BOY 


the youngsters to see Boston. Caddy she's 
cooked up, so's’t won't cost nothin' extry, and 
if they have to, 'twon’t hurt 'em to sleep aboard 
the Delight. Me ? No, I ain't goin'. Gran'sir 
and Gran'marm Fretas are goin'. Yes, 'tis 
kind o' ridickerlous, but they was some light- 
minded before ever Manny come ; 'tis the way 
with Portergees. And Gran'marm hain’t ever 
been to Boston. Jo Fretas is goin', too, so 
there ain’t any danger." 

“I'm afraid you're a-worshipin' graven im- 
ages, dependin’ so much on that boy," said 
Cap’n Seba, wagging his head solemnly. “ He's 
come nigh gettin' you into trouble more'n once." 

“ But he hain’t done it !" replied Cap'n 'Siah, 
with a triumphant air. “ He's got a head-piece, 
Manny has." But nevertheless the seams deep- 
ened in Cap'n 'Siah’s worn old face, and he 
looked anxiously toward the dark drifting bank 
along the eastern horizon. 

The little “ Portergee " looked anxiously at 
the fog-bank at four o'clock the next morning. 
But the wind — fair for Boston ! — would not 
bring the fog in rapidly. 

They were all at the landing early ; Jo Fretas, 
with his fiddle — it was a Scauset tradition that 


THE CASTING AWAY OF THE DELIGHT 43 


Jo cquld fiddle for a breeze more successfully 
than any one could whistle for it— Caddy, with 
her baskets of goodies ; Grandma Fretas, a dear, 
little old lady with snapping black eyes in a 
face like a baked apple, wrapped in a strange 
gay shawl that had come from Portugal many 
and many years before; and Grandsir Fretas, 
looking like a queer and astonishingly sunburnt 
Yankee, with a very old-fashioned tall hat, and 
a carpet-bag. The carpet-bag contained his 
own compass, but this was not to be made 
known to Manny, for the sake of his feelings. 
The Delight's cargo consisted of many barrels 
of mackerel, and fishlike odor was inevitable ; 
but the passengers had smelled fish all their 
lives, and were not fastidious like the summer 
visitors. In fact, young Josiah, who was de- 
veloping a trading bump, sat upon a mackerel- 
barrel and figured up the probable profits, and 
little Israel stood upon another, that he might 
have a wide view of the waters and possibly 
discover a whale. 

A fair wind ! It filled the Delight's sails 
gloriously, and she skimmed the water like a 
bird. What mattered that sly, creeping fog? 
Before it could catch them they would have 


44 


A CAPE COD BOY 


passed Minot’s Ledge light, they would be 
almost in Boston harbor. 

But a sailor, even so young a one as Manuel 
Silva, should have known that one cannot 
reckon upon the tricky wind ! It veered sud- 
denly ; it carried them inshore, and that creep- 
ing fog flew now inshore after them. 

It caught them as in a net ; it shrouded them 
and held them fast. And they were not quite 
certain that they had yet got beyond Scauset 
Shoals; it was doubtful whether they were in 
danger of getting upon the shoals, or upon little 
barren, low-lying Horseshoe Island, or upon 
Hornet Ledge. 

They “ hove to ” for a while ; but Manny’s 
heart was sick with the thought of his fresh 
mackerel that were not likely to be fresh when 
they reached the Boston market. The fog lifted 
a little, and the wind was fitful. They set all 
sail again and steered straight for Boston 
harbor. Grandsir Fretas, who had known that 
coast ever since he was a young man, was sure 
that, if it was a little thick, they could navigate 
the Delight safely between the dangers that lay 
in wait to trip her up. 

Manuel wasn’t going to be more afraid than 


THE CASTING AWAY OF THE DELIGHT 45 


Grandsir Fretas was ! It grew thicker and 
thicker ; you couldn’t see the boat’s length 
before her ; and all at once her keel grated 
harshly, there came a sickening lurch, and there 
was the Delight, with a cargo of twenty barrels 
of fresh mackerel and a lot of passengers bound 
for a Boston holiday, stuck hard and fast on the 
low sandy beach of Horseshoe Island. 

“ Now you’ve done it!” said young Josiali, 
gloomily, to Manuel. Young Josiali, was in- 
clined to take life hard, like his grandfather, 
and the prospective profits on those mackerel 
had reckoned up well. Jose, the newly arrived 
Portuguese, a big fellow, whom Manuel had 
hired to help handle the cargo, wept freely in 
his grimy yellow silk handkerchief, and Grand- 
sir Fretas said — just think how unfair! — that 
such a thing had never happened to him, 
though he had followed the sea for more than 
forty years, and that the young Portuguese were 
not as smart as the old ones. 

Grandma Fretas, who was dozing in the tiny 
cabin, awoke and anxiously inquired whether 
they had got to Boston, as she wished to be sure 
to arrive in her best cap, which was in her hand- 
bag. 


46 


A CAPE COD BOY 


Jo Fretas got out his fiddle, which was not 
such a bad thing to do, although Manuel did 
think that Jo would better be helping him to 
consider how to get the boat off ; and Caddy set 
about getting luncheon, to hearten them up, she 
said, although it was not yet time. 

They all ate but Manny. The lump in his 
throat conquered him when he tried it. He had 
hoped so much from those mackerel, finer, he 
was sure, than any that had been seen in the 
Boston market that season. 

“ It is for the good Cap’ll ’Siah that I feel,” 
he confided to Jo Fretas. “ He have anxiety in 
the top of his head,” for Manny could never 
believe that Cap’n ’Siah’s wen was not the cause 
of his anxious mind ; “ and if I make castaway 
now he will not believe that I take care of him, 
of all that have been like my own people to me, 
though times are bad.” 

“ When the tide comes in it may lift her off.” 
Jo stopped fiddling long enough to offer this 
consolation. 

“ But somewhere in the sand there is rock ! 
She bump and she bump ! She will have hole 
in her side. There is but one way — to throw 
overboard her cargo !” Manny said this firmly, 


THE CASTING AWAY OF THE DELIGHT 47 


although the grayish pallor of his clear-cut, 
tawny face showed what it cost him. 

The big Portuguese made eloquent gestures 
of despair. 

“ I know it must be ; it is why I weep,” he 
said. 

Grandsir Fretas had gone into the cabin with 
his wife and Caddy, for the fog had turned to a 
drizzle now, and the air was chilling. Manuel 
closed the cabin door softly but firmly behind 
Grandsir. 

“ It is as well,” he said. “ And though I 
lament that the good God have made him 
deaf, yet — ” 

Overboard went the barrels of mackerel one 
after another, and yet the Delight did not raise 
her keel from the sand. Not until the last 
barrel had gone, and part of her ballast as well, 
did she slip past the grating rock out and into 
clear water. 

“ Not a cent of money out of the mackerel, 
and we ain’t going to Boston at all !” wailed 
young Josiah, despairingly. Little Israel choked 
back a sob with an effort that wrung Manny’s* 
heart ; for he had promised himself that he 
would always stand between little Israel and the 


48 


A CAPE COD BOY 


troubles of life. He went and sat down beside 
the big Portuguese sailor, who was refreshing 
himself with a pipe. 

“ If only the barrels had been headed up, we 
might now pick up some,” he said, mournfully. 
“ We will go and pick up some empty ones, 
since we can nothing else do.” 

They were at anchor, and they put off in the 
row-boat to pick up the empty barrels, Manuel 
and young Josiali and the Portuguese sailor. 
The fog was very thick as they rowed about. 
The tooting of horns from passing vessels came 
to them through it, and the strains of Jo Fre- 
tas’ violin as he mournfully played “ Home 
Again.” 

They had pursued one bobbing barrel upon 
the soft sandy shore, and suddenly young Josiah 
cried out : 

“ My ! but that must be a whopper of a clam ! 
See what a spurt !” 

As the boys stepped upon the shore, the clams, 
after the manner of their kind, sent up tiny 
jets of water through the sand. 

Manny dug with heels and hands. The clam 
was “ a whopper !” So were most of the others 
which they all fell to digging with a will. Man- 


THE CASTING AWAY OF THE DELIGHT 49 

uel stood upright suddenly over his heap of 
clams, the blood aglow in his sharp, tawny face, 
and his eyes shining. 

“ I promise holiday, and I make him !” he 
cried. “ I know where there is market for clams 
like those, so big as Duxburys, and more so ! 
We will fill all the barrels we pick up — the De- 
light herself we will fill !” 

Grandsir Fretas was unbelieving. He looked 
at the row-boat full of the great clams, and said 
that he’d been thirty years alongshore, and 
never heard of clams on Horseshoe Island. If 
he hadn’t brought his own compass he should 
think they had struck somewhere else. Any- 
how, clams were “ resky. ” He had known 
many a man to carry a cargo of clams to Boston 
and come home with an empty pocket. And 
with that fog hanging round, it wasn’t likely 
that the clams would reach Boston before they 
were spoiled. One would really have thought 
that Grandsir Fretas had a wen like Cap’n 
’Siah. 

But Manny would not be discouraged. He 
said they would “ make holiday,” anyway ; that 
Caddy had made much good cakes that would 
hold out long. If the provisions should give 


4 


50 


A CAPE COD BOY 


out before they reached Boston, why — Manny 
turned pale a little at that thought. He thrust 
his hands into his pockets, but there issued 
therefrom only the feeble jingle of two nickels 
— the times had been so hard ! But he fin- 
ished his sentence bravely — why he had the 
reputation good ; many would trust him. 

It was not “ making holiday ” to dig and load 
the clams. They were very tired ; but it was 
very cheering that at nightfall, just when one 
could least expect it, a light wind arose and beat 
back the fog — the same fair wind that had 
started them so gayly in the morning. And 
all that night, taking turns at the watch, they 
sailed the Delight steadily up the bay toward 
Boston. 

Grandsir Fretas had a troubled dream in 
the stifling little, cabin of the Delight. He 
dreamed that Manuel had turned into a huge 
clam, and was swimming back to Horseshoe 
Island with his tall hat on, which fitted his 
head curiously well, and his compass under 
his arm. And he awoke and told his wife 
that he had warned Cap’n ’Siah against 
adopting that boy, for the young Portuguese 
were not like the old ones, and if they didn’t 


THE CASTING AWAY OF THE DELIGHT 51 


get cast away again before they got home he 
should be surprised. 

The next time he awoke the sun was shining 
brightly, and the Delight lay at a wharf — not a 
Boston wharf. Grandsir Fretas rubbed his 
eyes in bewilderment, and then recognized one 
of the seashore resorts in Boston harbor, 
although it had increased tenfold in size in the 
few years since he had seen it. 

“ I would have ask you of the opinion/’ 
said Manuel, modestly, “ but you sleep. There 
are seven-ten hotels here. To-morrow is Sat- 
urday, when they have the monster clam-bake. 
It is why I come here that I see often in Boston 
the signs, ‘monster clam-bake/ I say to my- 
self that I bring them monster clam. Already 
they bid against each other for the clams — the 
seven-ten hotels. But I — I have reputation ; 
I ask only good fair price in cash/’ Manuel 
thrust his hands again into his pockets ; a rustle 
of bank notes came from them instead of the 
feeble jingle. “ I invite you all to breakfast at 
the hotel/’ he added, a little grandly, for Manny 
was but human ; “ reduce rates for business 
man.” 

From the piazza of the Putasket House a 


52 


A CAPE COD BOY 


puffing, snorting little porgy-boat was to be 
seen making its way up to the wharf. They 
didn’t even look at it — Grandma Fretas, who 
was telling a lady guest all about her old home 
in the Azores, and Caddy, who was learning of 
another guest a new crochet stitch — one could 
see porgy-boats at Scauset. The bands were 
playing, and young Josiah and little Israel 
were going around on the flying horses. They 
were all “ making holiday,” while a carpenter 
was attending to that little rub on the Delight’s 
side that might mean a leak. 

Cap’n ’Siah, in his every-day clothes, and 
with his forehead in a hard knot, stepped from 
the porgy-boat and to the hotel piazza. 

“ I heard you was cast away on Horseshoe 
Island. Jeff Nickerson said he ketched sight 
of the Delight in the fog, but he darsn’t go 
auigh. The porgy-boat come along bound for 
Boston, and I come aboard. I was considerable 
anxious.” Cap’n ’Siali mopped his forehead, 
and his worn features worked. “ We went nigh 
enough to Horseshoe to see that you wa’n’t 
there, but there was no tellin’ what might have 
happened.” Cap’n ’Siah had his arm around 
young Josiah and little Israel now, and he held 


THE CASTING AWAY OF THE DELIGHT 53 


them fast. “ Where — where’s Manny ?” he 
asked, huskily. 

“ He’s in the hotel office. Here he come,” 
said Grandsir Fretas. 

Manuel threw his arms around Cap’n ’Siah’s 
neck and kissed him. That is not the way of 
Cape Cod boys, and Cap’n ’Siah was a little 
embarrassed. 

“ That you should be trouble, all the money 
and the holiday they are not worth it !” cried 
Manny, a boyish sob breaking his voice as he 
thrust his bills into Cap’n ’Siah’s gaunt, trem- 
bling hands. “ But no more shall the hard 
times give you trouble. I have sign contract to 
bring all the monster clam on Horseshoe Island 
to the hotel man.” 

Cap’n ’Siah turned away his head and blew 
his nose hard. “ Ain’t he the beatermost little 
Portergee for ’lightin’ on liis feet?” he said. 

“ He have the good head and the good 
heart,” answered Grandsir Fretas. “ And he 
let no chance slip him by.” 


CHAPTER IV 


A GREAT HAUL 

When Manuel asked the Captain’s consent to 
the purchase of a share in the new fish-weirs 
around the Point, the Captain shook his head 
and wiped the top of his head despondently. 

“You’re nothin’ but a little Portergee, after 
all, Manny,” he said, candidly, “ and for them 
that are wiser than you a common net and a 
fish-line has been good enough. You’re doing 
middlin’ well carryin’ the big clams from Horse- 
shoe Island up to the summer resorts, but that 
ain’t a business that’s going to last, and there’s 
a hard winter cornin’.” 

“ It is why I think still of the fish business,” 
said Manny, looking down and meditatively 
picking up gravel stones between his bare toes. 
“ The mackerel are now scarce, and there is a 
demand in the market. And there have been 
no weirs near the Point until now. The fish 
54 


A GREAT HAUL 


55 


are not wary. True Nickerson lie expect a 
great many fish. And the money that he de- 
mand to go share it is not much, for I go share 
also with my boat, the Delight, to carry the fish 
to Boston.” 

“ Carry the fish to Boston ! Good land, you 
hain’t got ’em yet !” exclaimed Cap’n. ’Siali, im- 
patiently. “Now look-a-here, Manny, you’re 
an enterprisin’ little Portergee, but there’s such 
a thing as being too enterprisin’. You put your 
money between your feather-bed and your mat- 
tress, and there ’tis in time of need ; but you 
set it to ketcliin’ fish, and maybe you’ll ketch 
’em and maybe you won’t, that’s my opinion. 
But look-a-here,” he called, as Manny turned 
away with his head still bent — “ I ain’t sayin’ 
that the money ain’t your own hard earnin’s, 
that you’ve a right to do as you’re a mind to 
with ; and heretofore, doin’ as you was a mind 
to, you hain’t never come out at the little end 
of the horn. And I — I hain’t no real objection 
to your spendin’ your money on them new fish- 
weirs if you think it’s best.” 

Good Cap’n ’Siah coughed from embarrass- 
ment and blew his nose hard. He feared that 
he was encouraging that little Portergee to be 


56 


A CAPE COD BOY 


“ resky,” as his friend Cap’n Seba Oakes warned 
him, but so far Manny’s ventures had turned 
out pretty well ; he seemed to have a knack of 
turning his failures into successes. That could 
not always be done with failures, thought Cap’n 
’Siah ; in fact, he had never been able to do it at 
all. Manny was somehow different, but Manny 
would before long “ run agi’n a snag,” as Cap’n 
Seba prophesied. 

Cap’ll ’Siah watched with a troubled gaze the 
slender little figure trudging sturdily off through 
the fog to True Nickerson’s. For Manny had 
the money in his pocket, having felt quite sure 
that Cap’n ’Siah would give his consent finally 
to its investment in the fish weirs. 

In truth, Manny himself felt some doubt 
about this investment. He was learning that 
the faculty of making money was useless with- 
out the faculty of taking care of it. And he 
was so proud and happy that he had been able 
to bring comfort and plenty to the little house 
at the Point, to the dear people who had shared 
their scanty stores with him. If he should fail 
them now with a hard winter coming on, how 
should he be able to bear it ? 

“ And yet my business require more than net 


A GREAT HAUL 


57 


and line. Business is always sometimes risk ; 
without the stout heart no man do him,” said 
Manny, aloud, although there were only sea- 
gulls to hear him. And he straightened him- 
self up, and his bare feet took a firmer hold of 
the sandy ground as he walked. 

Within an hour he was joint owner with True 
Nickerson of the new fish-weirs. And it was 
the very next week — Monday morning early — 
that he found the great haul in the weirs. A 
great haul — that was what Jo Fretas called it 
in derision. Jo had not entertained a great 
opinion of “ that weir business.” Manny was 
on board the Delight with Jose, the big Portu- 
guese sailor, who was a new arrival at Scauset 
that summer, and who often formed with Manny 
the whole crew of the Delight. Manny cher- 
ished hopes of a few barrels of mackerel to carry 
to Boston. It was the last run of mackerel, and 
prices were high. And clams were in less de- 
mand at the Putasket hotels, as the summer vis- 
itors began to depart. Manny felt that some- 
thing must be done. 

“ A great haul — mackerel !” called Jo Fretas, 
pointing to the weirs. And Manny’s heart 
thrilled. He had a vision of twenty barrels, 


58 


A CAPE COB BOY 


like those fine ones which he had been obliged 
to throw overboard when the Delight went 
ashore on Horseshoe Island. Twenty barrels, 
at how much a barrel, now? It made one 
almost dizzy to reckon. 

It was a beautiful morning in late August, 
and many pleasure-boats were hovering about 
the Point as Manuel sailed the Delight towards 
the weirs. He feasted his eyes upon a yacht he 
had seen the day before in Kingstown Harbor. 
What a beauty she was ! Clean-cut and grace- 
ful from bow to stern, and she sat upon the 
water like a bird. Manuel dearly loved his 
clumsy, fishy old Delight, but one of these days 
he meant to own a yacht like that. Good luck 
at the weirs might fulfill his hope before long. 

There were two small sail-boats and three or 
four row-boats near the weirs, and a chorus of 
shouts came from them to Manny’s ears. He 
heard the word mackerel, and he tossed up his 
cap and shouted as the Delight came around in 
sight of the weirs. He desired to be calm and 
dignified, as became a business man, but the 
reaction was too great from that fit of chilling 
doubt and jDrudence which Cap’ll ’Siah had 
brought upon him. 


A GREAT HAUL 


59 


Mackerel, indeed ! A huge horse-mackerel, 
the largest one that Manny had ever seen — a 
creature that reminded him of the Striped 
Marsh whale, lay motionless upon the dried-in 
netting. There were other trapped fishes — 
small mackerel and cod — but the great “ tunny ” 
had apparently been there longer than any, 
and looked as if it were quite dead. 

Young Josiah was on board the Delight, and 
so was young Gustavus Nickerson, who was 
wild with delight, as he saw in the tunny 
material for another show. But what help 
could they afford, thought Manny, in dismay. 
And big Jose, although he was strong, was not 
a skilful manipulator of the weirs. But one 
must not flinch ; especially, surrounded by 
boats, with the people on the fine yacht looking 
on, one must be master of the situation. 

The blood had rushed to Manny’s face under 
its coat of tan, but he gave orders in a calm 
voice to Jose, who seemed to be muttering his 
prayers in Portuguese, and might be expected 
at any moment to weep. But it could be said 
for Jose, that his tears never interfered with his 
usefulness, and although his wits were not 
nimble, he could be trusted to obey orders. 


GO 


A CAPE COD BOY 


The end of the mainsail halyards was made 
fast to the tunny’s tail, and the bight was tied 
to the main-sheet traveler. Manny longed for 
True Nickerson, who knew all about weirs, and 
presumably about big horse-mackerel, although 
Manny had heard it remarked from more than 
one of the neighboring boats that no such tunny 
as that had ever been seen in those parts. 

Gustavus gave vent to his excitement by 
turning a somersault upon the deck while 
the rope was being tied to the tunny’s tail, and 
young Josiah had taken out his pencil to calcu- 
late the profits of a show, when he was called 
upon to help bail in fish from the netting. 
They worked with a will — Manny, Jose and 
young Josiah — until suddenly the stanch little 
Delight settled as if she were going to the 
bottom. 

The stern sank until it was level with the 
sea, and water poured in. Quickly Manuel un- 
loosed the halyards, and the huge tunny, which 
had been able to use only its forward fins, disap- 
peared. It lay as quiet again as if it were dead. 

Manny wiped his brow. His sharp little 
Portuguese face was white now under its tan. 

“ I knew he was alive, and you’ll never 


A GREAT HAUL 


61 


catch him !” cried young Josiah, with dismal 
prophecy. 

The big horse-mackerel was alive ; there was 
no doubt of it. He started off like a steam- 
engine, and, as the hat braids tautened, the gaff 
started aloft. Now the after-end of the gaff 
was caught beneath the washboard, and this 
caught end held. There was no time to loosen 
it ; perhaps Jose might have done it, but he was 
calling upon the saints instead. There came a 
noise like the sharp report of a gun, accom- 
panied by a cry of dismay from all the sur- 
rounding boats. The gaff had broken, and the 
hook-gaff as well, and the sail flew aloft, 
puffed out like a balloon, and with a broken 
stick. 

There was a stiff breeze blowing, and it 
caught full in the bagging sail. There was a 
wild chorus from the boats. 

“ She’ll capsize ! She’ll be down on her 
beam ends. Get into your tender and cut loose, 
quick !” 

The Delight was on her beam ends ; in an- 
other moment she would be over ; but Manny 
was not confused by the hoarse cries. His head 
was always cool and his wits keen in an emer- 


62 


A CAPE COD BOY 


gency. He seized Jose’s sliarp knife, and sev- 
ered the halyards with one swift stroke. 

Off flashed the huge tunny through the net- 
ting, with almost a fathom and a half of hal- 
yards tied to his tail. 

The Delight righted herself ; the sail came 
down, with only a small rent in it. There was 
loud cheering from the boats'; from the jaunty 
yacht, that had come almost alongside, there was 
a clapping of hands and a waving of ladies’ 
handkerchiefs as well. 

“ Lucky that you had a skilful seaman 
aboard,” said a hearty voice, and Manuel saw 
that the yacht’s tender was close under the 
Delight’s bow, and a gentleman was standing in 
it, while two jauntily uniformed sailors rested 
upon their oars, and gazed somewhat critically 
at the Delight. “ Where is the Captain ?” 

Manuel took off his dingy cap and bowed 
respectfully. 

“You?” exclaimed the gentleman, with a 
half-puzzled, half-amused frown. “ Who man- 
aged the boat? Not that big fellow there?” he 
asked, pointing to Jose. 

“ It was I who cut the halyards. When a 
thing must be there is no more to say,” said 


A GREAT HAUL 


63 


Manny, quietly. “ But the tunny, so big as 
this ” — he spread his arms out to their widest 
extent — “ I lament him so long as I live.” 

A subdued sniffle was heard from Gustavus 
Nickerson. The tunny had meant a show, a 
paying show. Could a Yankee boy be expected 
to see it vanish unmoved ? 

The gentleman surveyed Manuel’s small 
figure and eager face curiously. 

“ You must be a born sailor. What are you ? 
Spanish — Portuguese ?” 

“ It is my honor to be countryman of the 
great Colombo,” answered Manny, with another 
bow ; his most elegant one this time, which 
always made the Cape boys stare open-mouthed. 
Anybody could learn to manage a vessel as 
Manny did, they thought, but to bow and 
scrape like that would make a Yankee boy feel 
foolish. 

The gentleman seemed to admire Manuel’s 
manners. He put his hand upon his shoulder 
kindly. 

“ I want a good sailor to manage my yacht for 
a short autumn cruise.” He mentioned the 
wages that he paid — a sum to make a Cape boy, 
Yankee or Portuguese, feel as if he were dream- 


64 


A CAPE COD BOY 


ing, and an outfit of clothing that would last 
Manny for a year and more. “ You would be 
just the one for me if you were not too young.” 

“ It is a fault, but I mend him,” gasped Manny, 
his dazzled eyes fixed upon the beautiful yacht, 
his heart bounding with hope. 

“ You would like it ? You love a fine vessel ?” 
asked the gentleman. 

“ Would I like it?” echoed Manny, his eager 
face aglow. “ I sail him with my heart. And 
to come home with much wages to soften the 
hard winter and to make merry the Christmas 
for Cap’ll ’Siah, who have a so anxious bump ! 
See me, how strong I am !” Manny held out his 
thin, sinewy arms. “ And it is in my blood to 
sail ship, like the great Colombo.” 

The gentleman laughed, but he asked him 
many questions about his past life and sailor 
experiences, and the upshot of the conversation 
was that he said, impulsively : 

“ Let us go and find Cap’n ’Siah, and if he 
consents, you shall be the sailing-master of the 
Petrel. We have older heads there, but not one 
so cool and steady in an emergency.” 

They were rowed to the Point in the yacht’s 
tender, leaving big Jose and the boys in charge 


A GREAT HAUL 


65 


of the Delight, and the very small cargo of 
fish that had not been washed overboard when 
she settled. 

At the Point landing they found an excited 
party about to put off in Grandsir Fretas’s old 
dory — Cap’n ’Siah, Grandsir Fretas, and Jo. 

Cap’n ’Siah trembled in all his gaunt frame 
as he stood leaning against the dory and shad- 
ing his dim old eyes with his hand to look at the 
trim row-boat which was bringing Manuel to 
shore. 

“Are the boys safe, Manny ?” he asked, hus- 
kily. “ If you’re all safe we mustn’t feel a mite 
bad because the Delight is lost — not a mite 
bad.” 

“Lost? Who say she is lost? Show me 
him !” cried Manny, hotly. “Nothing is lost 
but a fathom and a half of rope and — and the 
tunny.” Even with such brilliant prospects 
before him, Manny’s face clouded at the recol- 
lection of that loss. “So big a mackerel as 
never was.” 

“Jo heard that she’d gone down,” faltered 
the old man. “ Some thought ’twas kind of 
resky to let a little Portergee like you maniper- 
late the weirs.” 


5 


66 


A CAPE COD BOY 


And Grandsir Fretas shook his head, and 
said “ young Portergees had not the ballast good 
in their heads.” 

Now was not that an opportune time for the 
owner of the yacht to step ashore and tell the 
story of Manny’s courage and presence of mind, 
and how it had led him to wish to hire Manny 
to help sail his yacht? 

Cap’ll ’Siali had to turn his head away to 
hide the tears of joy and pride that rolled down 
his seamy old cheeks. Of course he would give 
his consent, though the time would seem “ ter- 
rible long ” when Manny was away, and he 
didn’t believe that Jo Fretas and True Nicker- 
son and big Jose and all could manage Manny’s 
fish business while he was gone as well as he 
managed it himself. 

As soon as Manny had been carried off to see 
the yacht and to be instructed in his new duties, 
Cap’ll ’Siali went in search of his friend Cap’n 
Seba Oakes, who was always prophesying that 
the little Portergee would get his protector into 
trouble. 

“ It beat all to see him come rowin’ home in 
the yacht’s tender and hired to be her sailin’- 
master — him that’s only seventeen — instead of 


A GREAT HAUL 


67 


bein’ capsized in the Delight as we heard he 
was,” said Cap’ll ’Siah. “It beat all. But 
wa’n’t it jest exactly like that little Portergee?” 

A month after, when the Petrel lay for a week 
at a South Carolina port, and there was time for 
letters to and from Scauset on the Cape, the 
following epistle was received by the sailing- 
master, who looked so elegant in his fine “ tog- 
gery ” that you would scarcely have recognized 
the little Portergee : 

“ Deer Manny, — this is to let You kno that 
Tomy nickerson most ketched the Tunny fisliin’ 
with a Krookid pin on pudden rok, yessir ! Us 
fellers was down by the marsh when Tomy 
fetched a Screach that Something was dragin 
Him into the watter. Tomy hung on like 
anything and then we all Pulled in Yards and 
Yards of rope. We most had Him but All of 
a Sudden the rope got Sawd off on a Sharp 
Rok and off went the Tunny just like He did 
before. It is a Hard Wurld. We was goin’ to 
have a show and then have Him stufed for you 
to see Him when You come home. We made a 
Vow and tatood our Arms to have that Tunny 
yet so do not Dispare. 

“ Respecktfully yours, 

“ Gustavus Nickerson.” 


CHAPTER V 


THE DISGRACE OF THE LITTLE FORTERGEE 

When Manuel came home to Scauset after 
liis cruise, he created something of a sensation. 
Sailing-master of a yacht and only seventeen ! 
Of course, Scauset was proud of him. Cap’ll 
’Siah modestly admitted that “ so fur forth as he 
knew, it beat the record.” 

Manny brought home more money than his 
fishing-boat, the Delight, had earned even by 
carrying clams from Horseshoe Island to the 
“ monster ” clambakes at the beaches. It was 
so much money that when Cap’n ’Siah began to 
prophesy a hard winter Manny would bring it 
out and count it, and the Cap’n’s dismal pro- 
phecy would collapse into a chuckle. Manny 
had come down in the train from Boston to 
Kingstown, and walked over to Scauset as mod- 
estly as if he were not a distinguished person 
at all. 


68 


DISGRACE OF THE LITTLE PORTERGEE 69 


It was Christmas week, and there was no 
school. Little Gustavus Nickerson first caught 
sight of Manny trudging along from Kingstown. 
Gustavus and his big brother Ludovico were 
trying to find some Christmas trees in the 
sparse, sand-smothered Scauset woods to carry 
to Kingstown to sell. 

Little Gustavus’s heart thrilled at the sight of 
Manny, who was especially his hero since they 
had had a show together on the Striped Marsh 
beach. He had cherished a hope of recapturing 
the tunny — the great horse-mackerel that had 
escaped from the Delight with many fathoms of 
line attached to him — before Manny should 
return ; but winter had made that an impossi- 
bility for the time. 

Since there was no tunny, something must be 
done to give the returning hero a proper greet- 
ing. Gustavus’s small, excited brain received a 
sudden inspiration. 

His brother Ludovico had gone deeper into 
the woods, in search of a tree tall and straight 
enough for a church festival. But Ludovico’s 
coat was hanging upon a tree near Gustavus, 
and in its pocket was the key of the school- 
house ; for Ludovico was the janitor. 


70 


A CAPE COD BOY 


Gustavus hurled one hoarse shout of welcome 
towards the little Portergee's advancing figure, 
and then ran to the school-house with the key. 
The new bell had, for a school-house hell, a 
great volume of sound. Perhaps its makers 
knew that it would have to vie with the mighty 
Atlantic's roar. It rang out loud and deep in 
the gray December afternoon, and the gulls 
answered with astonished screams, for they 
knew as well as any one that school-bells do not 
properly ring late in the afternoon. 

People heard the bell not only all over 
Scauset, but they heard it at Tooraloo and 
Fleetwell, for Gustavus rang with a will, and 
they didn't know what to make of it. 

They didn't have fires at Scauset, and so had 
never established a general system of alarms ; 
but it was natural to suppose that this was a 
fire-alarm, and Tooraloo, that had a new hose, 
and Fleetwell, that had a new engine, brought 
them over the snowy roads to Scauset as fast as 
horses could gallop. 

They reached the village as soon as the slow- 
going Scauset town fathers gathered, bewildered, 
from their various occupations, and all rushed 
together to the school-house, where little Gus- 


DISGRACE OF THE LITTLE PORTERGEE 71 


tavus Nickerson, rosy with excitement and 
exertion, was still pulling determinedly at the 
bell. 

“What in all natur do you mean?” cried 
Cap’n Seba Oakes, whose wooden leg had outrun 
all the sound ones. “ Ringin’ a fire-alarm and 
bringin’ all the engines in the county here 
when there ain’t any fire !” 

Little Gustavus looked wonderingly from one 
to another of the angry faces. 

“ Who said it was a fire-alarm ?” he demanded, 
in an injured tone. “ I’m ringing because Man- 
uel Silva has come home. They needn’t have 
come.” Gustavus pointed a chubby, disdainful 
finger at the Fleetwell and the Tooraloo fire- 
men. “ He isn’t their little Portergee !” 

Manuel, who, of course, had gone straight to 
the little house at the Point, had arrived at the 
school-house by this time with Cap’n ’Siali, who 
was in a state of great anxiety, having always 
prophesied that there would be a fire in Scauset 
before it had so much as a hose. 

Manuel, who had grown at least two inches, 
put his arm around the neck of the discomfited 
little Gustavus, and with the other hand he 
made a jingling in his pocket. 


72 


A CAPE COD BOY 


“ Coffee !” lie said, aside. “ Scauset will treat 
the firemen. It is I, Manuel Silva, who will 

P a y” 

It was Cap’n Seba Oakes who was off to the 
store for the coffee, his wooden leg making a 
small cyclone in the snow. The coffee was 
made in the school-house. There were crackers 
and ginger-snaps and cheese from the store as 
well, and the Scauset housewives sent good 
things. They all remarked how fortunate it was 
that it was Christmas-time, and they had been 
baking. Caddy Doane said she never should 
have made seven mince pies and frosted her cup- 
cake if she hadn’t felt in her bones that Manny 
was on the way home. 

When they had drunk to Manny’s health and 
the firemen’s, and afterwards, at Manny’s sug- 
gestion, to little Gustavus’s — to his blushing de- 
light — Manny had to relate his adventures, and 
everyone felt that his career had done great credit 
to Scauset. And Cap’n Orrin Saunders, the first 
Selectman of the town, was so moved that he 
made a little speech, in which he said that be- 
fore another distinguished townsman returned 
from his travels he hoped that Scauset would 
have a town-hall in which to give him a recep- 


DISGRACE OF THE LITTLE PORTERGEE 73 


tion. Before the reception was over the town 
had voted to raise money for a hose and a town- 
hall ! 

Cap’n ’Siah Doane had headed the subscrip- 
tion list with a goodly sum, and he had done it 
without once raising his bandana handkerchief 
to his wen — his anxious-bump. 

The Cap’n had put his own name down — 
Manny had insisted — but every one knew that 
the money was in the little Portergee’s 
pocket. 

“ He’ll get the big head now ! That little 
Portergee of yourn is sp’ilt for certain,” said 
Cap’ll Seba Oakes to Cap’n ’Siah Doane on 
their way home from the school-house, which 
seemed a little unkind of Cap’n Seba, consider- 
ing that he dearly loved a treat, and had eaten 
more than any one else. 

Caddy was afraid he would be spoiled, or at 
least be made very dandified, by the great 
quantity of beautiful clothes provided by the 
owner of the yacht for his sailing-master, hand- 
some, jaunty suits and underwear by the dozen 
pairs. Manny gave it away generously to young 
Josiah, and his thirteen-year-old head was 
thereby so turned that he invented a stretching 


74 


A CAPE COB BOY 


machine to make him tall enough to fit the 
clothes — and came very near to hanging himself 
with it in the wood-shed one day. But that is 
not in this story. 

What was Manny going to do now ? That 
was the question that was agitating the minds 
of all Scauset. His fishing business had thriven 
fairly well under his friends’ management, but 
fishing in the Delight seemed but a small busi- 
ness for Manny now, even if it were the season 
for it. He might go to the Banks in a large 
ship — great catches were sometimes brought 
home from there ; but there seemed an icy 
clutch at poor Cap’ll ’Siah’s heart when he 
thought of that — only an old sailor fully real- 
izes the perils of the sea. 

It would scarcely have surprised Cap’ll ’Siah 
to see the little Portergee assume command 
of a Cunarder, and it would have seemed alto- 
gether natural that he should be chosen to fill 
an important position in the merchant service. 
But even to him Manuel had not yet confided 
what he meant to do. 

Even wilder reports than Cap’n ’Siah’s fancies 
were afloat in Scauset, the product, doubtless, of 
little Gustavus Nickerson’s lively imagination. 


DISGRACE OF THE LITTLE PORTERGEE 75 


Manuel was to be the proprietor of a stupendous 
show, with Gustavus Nickerson as lion-tamer; 
he was to organize and own a new line of Cape 
steamers ; and he was to hunt elephants in 
India. 

“ What are you going to do now, Manny ?” 

It was Jo Fretas who boldly asked when the 
rumors had reached their height, and every- 
body, especially the boys, had their eyes on 
Manny. 

The boys had cut a hole in the ice to fish for 
smelts — that wouldn’t bite even for Manny — 
and life in Scauset was felt to be dull. Every 
boy gazed open-mouthed at Manny while he 
hesitated a little, slowly loosening the great 
woolen muffler that Caddy made him wear be- 
cause his throat had been a little sore. 

“ I —I will go to school,” answered Manny, 
quietly. 

The boys looked startled and incredulous. It 
must be a joke of Manny’s, they thought. That 
a boy who could do such things as Manny had 
done — that any boy, in fact, who wasn’t obliged 
to should go to school seemed incredible to the 
youthful Scauset mind. 

If they had been girls there would have been 


76 


A CAPE COD BOY 


a chorus of exclamations ; the boys only looked 
at one another. 

Little Gustavus strangled, manfully, a wild 
sob in his throat, tasting already the disappoint- 
ment of those who pin their hopes upon the 
great. 

“ Well, it isn’t such a grind since we’ve got 
the new schoolmaster,” said Smith Saunders, 
who had more zeal for knowledge than any 
other Scauset boy, because, as was suspected by 
his mates, he was too lame to do anything but 
study. “ He kind of wakes you up.” 

Manuel looked wistfully into Smith’s face. 

“ But it is to the small school that I must go,” 
he said. 

“ To the small school ?” echoed Smith Saun- 
ders, in dismay. “ Why, the teacher is only 
Viola Nickerson with her hair done up ! And 
you don’t get out of the Third Header there.” 

Gustavus gave way to his feelings and roared 
dismally. His hero, whose magnificent future 
he had hoped to share, was going to school with 
him to his sister Viola! 

“ The arithmetic is in me here,” Manny 
tapped his broad forehead with a roughened, 
stubby little forefinger. “For all him I could 


DISGRACE OF THE LITTLE PORTERGEE 77 


go to the big school, but the English — to write 
him and spell him, though I try hard, he get 
away from me — like the tunny.” Manny 
smiled brightly at Gustavus, but Gustavus could 
not smile. “ They say I must go for long time 
to the small school.” 

“ With the little lunks, eight or ten years 
old !” said Bake Atwood, as the boys strolled 
homeward, leaving Manny and young Josiah to 
go to their home at the Point alone. “ Well, lie’s 
only a little Portergee, after all ! I don’t know 
why people should expect that he was going to 
set the river afire !” 

If Cap’ll ’Siah and Caddy felt any mortifica- 
tion at Manny’s interruption of a proud career 
to go to the small school, they found a compen- 
sation in the fact that they should have him at 
home and out of danger. For the little Por- 
tergee had found as warm a corner in their 
hearts as if he were their own. 

They were small desks under which Manny 
stretched his legs — really beginning to be long 
legs now, to his great satisfaction ; and the 
teacher was no taller than he, although she had 
been to the Waterbridge Normal School for two 
whole terms. 


78 


A CAPE COD BOY 


By an arrangement with the committee, Viola 
Nickerson was to teach him arithmetic in ad- 
vance of the class, which had only reached vulgar 
fractions. In fact, Manny assisted in teach- 
ing the fractions, for he took little Gustavus, 
privately, behind the school-house wood-pile, 
and by cutting up an apple convinced him, as 
Viola couldn’t, that a fourth was more than 
a sixth. 

Little Gustavus seemed to feel keenly the dis- 
advantage of going to school to one’s sister ; he 
said it was hard to believe in her ’rithmetic when 
you knew she put her hair up in papers, and 
couldn’t throw a stone so it would hit even a hen. 

Manuel went gallantly on to compound in- 
terest and cube root under Viola’s guidance ; 
but one day came trouble. There was a prob- 
lem about a steejde and the shadow that it cast 
at certain times of the day. 

Viola said that Manuel didn’t do it right or 
get the right answer, and Manny insisted that 
he did. When she ordered him to do it over 
again in her way, he told her, with his Portu- 
guese blood fiery in his cheeks and his black 
eyes flashing, that he knew how to solve that 
problem and she didn’t ! 


DISGRACE OF THE LITTLE PORTERGEE 79 


It was right before the first class in geography, 
too, that had been kept after school for having 
an imperfect lesson. 

Viola would have sent for Mr. Dence, the 
master of the upstairs school, to come down 
and use his rattan, but it happened that he had 
been taken suddenly ill, and forced to close his 
school and go home to Sandliam to get well. 

So Viola simply sent Manuel home and in- 
formed the committee of his unruly conduct, 
and he was told forthwith that he must apolo- 
gize to his teacher and perform the example as 
she directed, or be expelled from school. Manny 
chose to be expelled! Not Cap’n ’Siah’s severe 
reproaches, nor his assertions that they were a 
ruined family — ruined by a little Portergee ! — 
nor Caddy’s tears could move him. 

It was considered in Scauset a veiy serious 
thing to be expelled from school, as indeed it 
should be considered everywhere. Cap’n ’Siah 
said that poverty was nothing — nothing, com- 
pared to disgrace ! And his anxious bump 
seemed to grow before Manny’s very eyes. 

“ What do you think of your little Portergee 
now ?” That was the way in which Cap’n Seba 
Oakes hailed Cap’n ’Siah in the main street of 


80 


A CAPE COD BOY 


Scauset. He shouted like a fog-horn, too, 
although Cap’ll ’Siah was only a little deaf in 
his left ear. 

“ You’d better get rid of him if you don’t 
want young Josiah to foller in his footsteps !” 
added Cap’n Seba in another shout. 

Manuel heard. He was playing checkers with 
Grandsir Fretas, in the back of the store, on the 
top of a sugar-barrel, where he had marked out 
a board. 

Grandsir Fretas believed in Manuel, but he 
was so dispirited by his disgrace that he had 
discarded his tall liat and become really untidy 
in his appearance. He had been so proud of 
his young countryman ! It was one of the bit- 
terest drops in Manuel’s cup to disappoint 
Grandsir Fretas. 

“ You’d better get rid of him,” Cap’n Seba 
Oakes had said. That was the way to solve the 
difficulty, thought Manny, with sudden, des- 
perate resolve. 

He loved them all, in the little house at the 
Point; his warm Portuguese heart clung to 
them as if they were his very own ; he meant 
to take care of them always. But he would not 
stay to be a trouble and disgrace to them ! 


DISGRACE OF THE LITTLE PORTERGEE 81 

He played so recklessly that Grandsir Fretas 
captured all liis kings at one swoop ; then he 
rushed away, leaving Grandsir Fretas to gather 
up the checkers. 

He was glad to remember, as he ran along 
the street, that while he played checkers with 
Grandsir Fretas the school-bell had rung out 
the noon hour ; by this time the scholars would 
have all dispersed. They called out little taunt- 
ing jokes that stirred his Southern blood and 
might get him more deeply into disgrace. 

The scholars had all gone, but Cyrus Dence, 
the upstairs teacher, was coming out of the 
school-house. He had returned from Sandham 
only a few days before. He called to Manny, 
and although Manny was tempted to run on, 
he crossed the street to the school-house gate 
instead. 

“ What is it about the steeple problem ?” 
asked the teacher. And he looked at the little 
Portergee more respectfully than any one in 
Scauset had looked at him for many days. 
“ One of your schoolmates has just told me 
about it. Come up to my room and work it 
out on the blackboard, just as you did in Miss 
Nickerson’s room.” 


6 


82 


A CAPE COD BOY 


Manny hesitated. “ Perhaps I do him Por- 
tuguese, and she has a right to have him done 
her own way in her own school/’ he said, slowly. 

“ I want to see your way !” insisted the 
schoolmaster. 

“ It is only for curiosity, and you will not 
tell ?” said Manny, anxiously. 

“ If you do it right you don’t want me to 
tell?’ asked the young man, in surprise. 

“ I think it all over, and I go away. It is bet- 
ter so,” said Manny, quietly. “ We are men, you 
and I ; it is not right that we pick upon a girl !” 

The schoolmaster laughed until the empty 
rooms echoed, and the little Portergee stared in 
somewhat injured astonishment. 

“No, I will not tell,” said the master, suddenly, 
seriously ; “ but it is already known that your 
answer was right. Nick Atwood saw the key 
to the arithmetic — in Miss Nickerson’s desk.” 

“ I know it !” The little Portergee blushed 
as if he were the guilty one. “ It is only three 
days since she has it. Nick Atwood told me. 
I have given him all my smelt poles and hooks 
and the promise of a gun not to let the com- 
mittee know — and now he tell you !” 

“ I’m not the committee. I promised to keep 


DISGRACE OF THE LITTLE PORTERGEE 83 


the secret,” answered the young man. “ But 
why is it a secret to be kept ? Are you going 
to let yourself be wronged and disgraced — your 
friends, too ! — because it is a girl who does the 
mischief ?” 

“ I have think much, ,, said Manny, slowly, 
“ and this is what seem the only way I can do — 
to go away. They are so poor in the old Striped 
Marsh house, and with Ludovico lame and the 
father bedridden, she almost take care of all. 
If she lose the school there are not even cran- 
berries to pick, in the winter. And Gustavus, 
her brother, is my heart’s friend. I go away, 
and always I find work and money to send 
home; I take care of my people still. If it had 
been a teacher like you, then I would make 
him take back that I had done the steeple 
shadow wrong ; but she is only Viola Nicker- 
son with her hair done up — and I go away and 
she have her 8011001.” 

Cyrus Dence turned his head away for a 
moment and looked out of the window ; whether 
because he wanted to laugh or to cry I cannot 
say, but his voice was a trifle husky when he 
said, “ Come ! I want to see you work out the 
problem.” 


84 


A CAPE COD BOY 


Manny seized the chalk, and disdaining the 
book the master handed him — would not the 
steeple-shadow jiroblem remain always in his 
head ? — he quickly did the work, explaining it 
in his quaint, difficult English. 

“ Exactly right !” said the master when he 
had finished. “ The principle is different from 
that by which the others on the same page are 
done, and Miss Nickerson didn’t see it. I doubt 
whether one of my pupils could have done it 
without assistance. Stay at home, and come to 
school to me! Oh, it can be managed ! - I will 
give you extra lessons in English.” 

The little Portergee’s face glowed with the 
eagerness of one who loves knowledge and 
understands its value. But the glow faded 
the next moment and the resolute look re- 
turned. 

“ Think of your own people !” said the school- 
master. 

“ I think of them, and I will take care of 
them wherever I am. But she, if she have no 
school, can do nothing, and Gustavus, my heart’s 
friend, is small. My mind, I have made him 
up!” 

The little Portergee was gone. The school- 


DISGRACE OF THE LITTLE PORTERGEE 85 


master watched, meditatively, the slender figure 
running fast towards the Point. 

In the gray light of the early winter morn- 
ing the Delight lay off theScauset pier with all 
sails set for the favoring wind — quite a distance 
off the pier, to be clear of the ice that had gath- 
ered around the piles and stretched its clogging- 
coat out into the little harbor. 

Cap’n ’Siali, arising before light, had found, 
in the toe of the stocking that he was putting 
on, the roll of bills that Manny had brought 
home for the hard winter. Then he knew what 
had happened. 

There was a delay in getting the Delight off. 
Jo Fretas had a sore thumb, and they had to be 
careful about the floating ice. 

A crowd — really a crowd for Scauset — had 
gathered on the long pier. Into the midst of it 
rushed the schoolmistress, not Viola Nickerson 
with her hair done up now, for it was dis- 
hevelled and waved wildly, and the shawl upon 
her head blew back upon the wind. 

“ Oh, come back, Manny Silva !” she cried, 
distractedly. “ I know you did it right, and I’ll 
tell everybody ! It was mean and wicked, but 
I’ve only had the key for a few days — and I 


86 


A CAPE COD BOY 


didn’t know wliat we should do if I lost the 
school ! Cap’n ’Siah has fainted, and they can’t 
bring him to, and they’re afraid it’s a stroke — ” 

Cyrus Dence’s strong voice broke in upon her 
thin high-keyed one : “ Manuel ! come back ! 
I’ll fit you for college !” he shouted. 

“ College !” echoed Gustavus Nickerson, with 
scorn. “ He’s going to load the Delight up to 
Boston, some say with lumber for South 
America, some say with guns for the Cuban fel- 
lers ! Oh, I wisht he’d took me !” 

But the wind that filled the Delight’s sails and 
rattled her cordage drowned all other sounds to 
Manuel’s ears. His voice, young and shrill, came 
across the water to the watchers on the pier, “ I 
will come back soon !” 

But who can say when or how he who goes 
will come back ? 


CHAPTEK VI 


THE HASTY VOYAGE OF THE DELIGHT 

The Delight had sailed out of Scauset’s little 
harbor on a winter day, and no one knew 
whither she was going. 

Viola Nickerson’s penitent confession that 
she had known that she was wrong and Manuel 
right ever since she bought the key to the arith- 
metic came too late. 

“ It’s a pretty time to beller now T !” her 
brother, little Gustavus, had called to her with 
angry scorn, when she stood wringing her hands 
upon the wharf after the Delight’s sails were 
already spread to the favoring wind. 

Manuel had humbled himself to go to the 
“ down-stairs school,” and he had meant to learn 
all that Viola Nickerson could teach him, and 
perhaps get some new ideas about arithmetic 
into her head. And if that plan had not failed, 
he might have known some things that now he 

87 


88 


A CAPE COP BOY 


will always miss. In that case, however, the 
building “ boom ” might never have come to 
Scauset. 

Off went the Delight with a favoring wind. 
And big Jose, the Portuguese sailor, didn’t care 
who saw him weeping on the wharf because 
Manuel wouldn’t take him. One reason why 
he wouldn’t was because Jose was needed to 
take care of Grandpa and Grandma Fretas, with 
whom he lived, and another reason was that he 
cried too easily. That is a very bad thing any- 
where in the world, but es]iecially amid the 
perils of the deep. Jo Fretas could play the 
fiddle and sing a merry song when things were 
rough, and that made him worth more than his 
wages. 

Cap’n ’Siah Doane, who had adopted Manuel 
before any one had thought of calling him “ a 
smart little Portergee,” had found a fat roll of 
bank-bills in the toe of his blue yarn stocking 
when he went to put it on. 

All the money that Manny had ! Caddy 
knew that, and was worried about him. She 
turned fiercely upon Cap’n Seba Oakes when 
he knocked at the door, using the knobby end 
of his wooden leg for a knocker, as he always 


THE VOYAGE OF THE DELIGHT 


89 


did when lie was excited, merely to say that he 
“ expected they’d found out now that adoptin’ 
a little Portergee wa’n’t what ’twas cracked up 
to be.” 

She had said, sharply, that there wasn’t a 
better boy in this world than Manuel Silva, nor 
a smarter one, and what they should do without 
him she didn’t know. 

And Cap’n Seba had retorted that it “ ’peared 
as if they’d have to do without him.” Nobody 
seemed to know where he was going in that 
little fishing-vessel in the middle of winter. 
Did she know ? Caddy was forced to show, 
though she wouldn’t admit, that she didn’t, and 
Cap’n Seba went stumping off with a little 
jeering laugh. 

If she only knew whither the Delight was 
bound ! To go off without telling them was, 
she said to herself, the only unkind thing that 
Manuel had ever done. Cap’n ’Siah and the 
boys had gone with the old spy-glass, around 
the Point to keep the Delight in sight as long 
as possible. She seemed to be headed for 
Boston, but to what far-off port, to what ends 
of the earth, might she not sail from Boston ? 

Little Israel, in a passion of tears cried out, 


90 


A CAPE COD BOY 


as people had cried out on the wharf, “ Come 
back, Manny !” 

And there were tears mingled with the salt 
spray on Cap’ll ’Siah’s seamy cheek. 

Manny, usually so sensible, had allowed his 
wounded pride to carry him into hasty action. 
He had disgraced them ; it was better that they 
should be rid of him, he had said to himself, a 
little bitterly. And how could he tell them 
where he w r as going, when he did not know 
himself? 

As for Jo Fretas, he did not much care where 
they went. There was fishing-tackle on board 
the Delight, and Jo was a born sailor and 
fisherman, and he found Scauset dull in the 
winter, and had eagerly accepted Manuel’s in- 
vitation to a cruise in the Delight. He sang a 
jovial sea-song as the Delight flew over the 
sparkling waves. It seemed to be enough for 
Jo that he 


Knew the merry earth was round, 
And they might sail for evermore. 


But Manuel had a wrinkle of responsibility 
between his brows. And he shook his head 
when Jo began to get out the lines and bait. 


THE VOYAGE OF THE DELIGHT 


91 


“I am man of family, and I go to make 
money lie said. “ There is no fisliing for 
profit now, except far, far outside, where it is 
not safe for the Delight to go. When the her- 
ring come again — the little herring for the 
sardine — and the fat mackerel, and it is time 
for the monster clam-bake — then I have con- 
tract, and I fill him.” 

“ Then where under the sun are we going 
now?” demanded Jo Fretas. 

“ The Delight can carry freight,” said Manuel, 
calmly. “ We make her coaster for the winter.” 

“ But where are you going to get your 
freight? The Delight is so small, and you’re 
only a boy ! It isn’t so easy to get into business 
like that,” said Jo Fretas, wagging his head 
seriously. 

Jo might sing merry songs, but he saw prac- 
tical difficulties, as the Cape mind always does. 

Manuel took a reef in the Delight’s mainsail 
before he answered, for the wind was freshening. 
Then he stood before Jo, drawn up to his full 
height (which was not so tall as he could have 
wished), and with the color burning in his thin 
olive cheeks. 

“ Have I said it was easy ?” he demanded. 


92 


A CAPE COD BOY 


“ There will be difficulty. I find him always, 
and I take him so?” — Manny brought his lean 
little fingers unpleasantly close to Jo’s sinewy 
throat — “ and he choke, Listen !” Manny 
descended suddenly from his dramatic figure to 
practical details. “ I am business man — and 
you too. Business men have reputation and 
friends. I go to the canning factory where 
they buy my little herring, and sometimes my 
big mackerel, and I say, ‘ Give me freight for 
the Delight ; she carry it anywhere along the 
coast.’ ” 

“ But they do business on a large scale ; they 
don’t want to send their goods along the coast,” 
objected Jo Fretas. 

The little furrow deepened between Manny’s 
brows ; but lie spoke bravely. “ There are 
others ; there is much business in the world. 
And the Delight will do what she say ; they 
all know it. If we can make Boston you will 
see. But I wish we had taken more provisions.” 

If provisions were a little short, it was be- 
cause Manny had wished the wad of bills in the 
toe of Cap’n ’Siah’s blue stocking to be as large 
as possible. And only some loose change 
chinked lonesomely in his pocket. Making 


THE VOYAGE OF THE DELIGHT 


93 


Boston didn’t seem so easy as it liad done at 
first. The wind was almost a gale now, and the 
vessel climbed mountains and pitched into 
yawning gulfs, until even the born sailors grew 
a little giddy. 

She rode the great waves gallantly for such a 
little vessel, but it seemed likely that at any 
moment one of the huge ones might swamp her. 

Jo Fretas got out his fiddle, and while the 
Delight scudded with almost bare masts before 
the wind, he played accompaniments to the rol- 
licking airs he sang. 

But the furrow between Manuel’s brows grew 
deeper. The Delight was racing like a grey- 
hound ; never in all her business career had she 
made such time as this between Scauset and 
Boston. But the early winter darkness was 
closing in — a thick, starless darkness — and 
Boston Harbor would be full of shipping ; there 
was danger of collision. 

“ The harbor ! I never thought we should 
make him before the morning,” murmured 
Manny, in dismay. “ And to run inshore where 
there is no port and we cannot see — that is more 
dangerous than the harbor.” 

Jo Fretas played, plaintively, “ The Girl I 


94 


A CAPE COD BOY 


Left Behind Me.” And then he played no 
more, for the whistling wind drowned the 
music, and the snow came down in blinding 
whirls. And the little Delight plunged on, the 
light at her bow almost obscured by sleet. 
There were shadowy shapes around them now, 
like ghosts of vessels, and hoarse cries came to 
them through the darkness. 

Jo Fretas said that if they had gone fishing 
they should be anchored now off one of the 
islands as comfortably as could be, which was 
not quite the kind thing of Jo, but, in truth, he 
liked a fishing trip better than business, and, 
not being a man of family, didn’t care much if 
he went home from a cruise without a cent in 
his pocket, provided he had had a good time. 

Manuel said it was one good thing that no 
vessel would be going out of the harbor on a 
night like this. But Jo replied sourly that 
“ there was always some simpleton or other 
going where he had no business to.” 

And even as he spoke a great shape loomed 
before them in the darkness, was upon them with 
a shrieking and a crash, then steered off sud- 
denly, grazing the Delight’s side, and leaving 
her shaking and shivering from bow to stern. 


THE VOYAGE OF THE DELIGHT 


95 


Through the puffing and shrieking of the 
monster came the sound of voices, and Jo Fretas 
made a foghorn of his great brawny hands, and 
shouted a demand to be towed to port in return 
for the injuries inflicted upon the Delight. 

But the monster, unheeding, went its way. 
And Jo Fretas said he “ couldn’t help thinking 
of Gid Freeman, who was crazy enough to go 
sandin’ in the dead of winter in the Mary Jane, 
and got her all stove to pieces and got a crick in 
his spine so he hadn’t been the same man since.” 
The fact was that when you couldn’t fiddle 
you had to face the situation, and that didn’t 
suit Jo. 

Meanwhile Manuel had discovered some- 
thing that seemed to him far worse than a crick 
in the spine, and about as bad as anything that 
could have happened to Gid Freeman’s Mary 
Jane. The Delight had sprung a leak in her 
side ! 

This was not a little graze like that which 
she had received on the rocks of Horseshoe 
Island the summer before. Water was dripping 
into the little cabin ; it seemed inevitable to 
both Manuel and Jo that it should soon be 
pouring in. Jo sang “ Heave yo, my hearties !” 


96 


A CAPE COD BOY 


— in a somewhat muffled tone, it is true, but 
that was better than remembering something 
disastrous. 

And just at that moment, when it must be 
owned Manuel’s spirits were at a rather low 
ebb, the gusty wind blew away the snow, and 
showed them what seemed a great illumination 
near at hand on shore. 

Manuel rubbed his eyes to be sure that he 
was not dreaming. “ We’re going too near ; 
but if it is as I think, there is a safe harbor. It 
is our monster clambake hotel that so light 
himself up, and it is not the summer, either.” 

“Not by considerable it ain’t,” called Jo, 
dryly, from below, where he was trying to 
stanch the Delight’s wounds. 

The sea-shore resort, so familiar to the crew 
of the Delight, was deserted in winter. It was 
no wonder that the illumination made Manuel 
think he was dreaming. 

“ She’ll go down in less than an hour,” called 
Jo from the cabin, where he was struggling with 
the in-pouring water. And there were no songs 
now. 

Manuel steered the Delight straight towards 
the lighted harbor, and as he did so he recalled 


THE VOYAGE OF THE DELIGHT 97 

an old Portuguese legend of miraculous help 
given to shipwrecked mariners. 

Might it not be that the Heavenly Father 
knew that he was a man of family ? He knew 
that they were praying for him in the little 
house at the Point as the wild storm broke upon 
them. 

Not so near to the shore as they had seemed, 
and the veering, gusty wind beat them back ! 
Both Manuel and Jo were needed to manage the 
vessel now, and the water gained upon them 
rapidly. Was the valiant little Delight to go 
down within sight of the friendly lighted 
shore ? 

The wind grew friendly suddenly, just as 
Manuel was trying to decide, with a cruel pang, 
whether it was his duty as a man of family to 
leave his dear Delight to her fate and make for 
the shore in the tender. It was almost as if the 
wind and the struggling little vessel obeyed a 
great shout that went up from the shore. After 
the shout there sprang up suddenly the blaze of 
a bonfire. It grew quickly into a big bonfire. 

“ If we liain’t got bewitched, so we’re seein’ 
what there ain’t there, like shipwrecked folks 
that I’ve heard tell of, why, we’ve struck the 


7 


98 


A CAPE COD BOY 


Fourth of July, and that’s all there is about it,” 
said Jo Fretas. 

By the time the Delight was safely moored 
the whole little harbor seemed ablaze, and an 
eager cheering crowd welcomed her upon the 
wharf. 

It was the landlord of the “ monster ciam- 
bake hotel ” who first seized Manuel in a cordial 
grip. 

“ I declare if we’d known that the vessel we 
saw beating ’round out there was the little De- 
light, and you and Jo were aboard of her, we’d 
have made a bigger bonfire — and yet I don’t 
know as we could have, for we burned all the 
tar-barrels we had,” he cried, cordially. “ Some 
fellows down here at the bowling-alley ” — he 
pointed to the long, low building near the shore 
— “ caught sight of the vessel, and thought she 
was having a hard time of it, and we made up 
our minds to do what we could to help her. 
Look here, boys ! Think of its being Manny 
Silva and the Delight.” 

The boys were the hotel employees of the 
summer before, and some fishermen who lived 
alongshore, all Manny’s friends,' and they 
cheered so heartily that he was reminded of the 


THE VOYAGE OF THE DELIGHT 


99 


ringing of the Scauset school bell on his return 
to the Cape. 

“ What’s going on here ? Well, it must have 
surprised you,” said the landlord, in answer to 
Manny’s puzzled inquiry. “ I’m building an 
addition to the hotel — making it twice as large ; 
got a large gang of carpenters here, and when 
the weather is so bad that they can’t work — we 
haven’t got to the inside work yet — why, they 
make things lively. They’re quartered in the 
hotel ; that’s why it’s lighted up. And it looks 
about as gay here from the water as it does in 
summer. Lucky for you that it was so.” 

“ It was the good God,” said Manny, simply, 
as he had been taught at home. 

Carpenters! Was not that more than luck? 
They made the Delight as staunch and strong as 
if nothing had ever happened to her. 

And there was nothing to pay. It was time 
that belonged to him, the landlord said. And 
they would have been doing nothing else, for, 
besides the hindrance of bad weather, they had 
been hindered by waiting for lumber. He had 
not found vessels to bring it quickly enough for 
the large gang of men. What did Manuel say 
to putting the Delight into the carrying trade 


100 


A CAPE COD BOY 


for the winter? Although she was small, she 
was a fast sailer, and the route from Boston 
was “ inside ” all the way. And she could earn 
more than in the fishing trade. 

That bargain was soon made. Even Jo agreed 
that it would be better fun than fishing in the 
winter. 

The next morning Cap’n ’Siali stood by the 
window of the post-office, which was also the 
store, to read a telegram that shook in his with- 
ered fingers. 

Caphi Seba Oakes stood near by, the centre 
of an interested group. Every one knew how 
the little household at the Point had suffered 
from anxiety through the severe storm ; Jo Fre- 
tas’s friends, too, who were almost all of Scauset, 
had worried much about the honest fellows The 
Delight had been on everybody’s lips. 

“ It’s likely the Delight has gone to the bot- 
tom, and the bodies have been hove up some- 
where,” whispered Cap’n Seba, who had a 
gloomy imagination. “ Cap’n ’Siah’ll take it 
hard, and he’ll have to pay the funeral ex- 
penses, and I guess he’ll get about enough of 
adoptin’ headstrong little Portergees!” 

“ I — I can’t bear to read it,” stammered poor 


THE VOYAGE OP THE DELIGHT 101 


Cap’ll ’Siah, turning piteously to liis friends ; 
and liis voice broke in a great sob. 

It was little Gustavus Nickerson wlio took 
the paper from liis hand and read it, in his 
clear piping voice, in the midst of a breathless 
silence. 

“ Gone into the lumber business. — Manuel.” 

Not a word more ! In truth, there had been 
unforeseen small expenses — there always are — 
and the quarter that paid for those five words 
was the very last of the silver that had jingled 
feebly in Manuel’s pocket. There was a chorus 
of congratulations. Even Cap’ll Seba. Oakes 
looked into his old friend’s face and said, qua- 
veringly : 

“ I’m glad for you, ’Siah ; true’s you live I 
be. For if the Lord didn’t give you no more 
sense than to adopt a little Portergee, why, you 
ain’t to blame !” 

Cap’n ’Siah looked around proudly upon his 
friends, and his voice regained its firmness. 

“ I wa’n’t much afraid but what Manny had 
lit on his feet — seein’ he’s that kind of a little 
Portergee,” he said ; “ but — but ” — his voice 


102 


A CAPE COD BOY 


threatened to break again — “ we all know some- 
thing about the perils of the sea.” 

Little Gustavus Nickerson had slipped out at 
the door, with a heart too full for utterance. 
The lumber business ! That meant Cuba or 
South America (sooner or later they hear at the 
Cape all that is going on in the great world). 
On the solitary road that led to his home Gus- 
tavus uttered a great babyish “ boo-hoo !” Then 
he looked around ashamed to be sure that no 
one heard. 

There was no sound save the crackling of the 
tree boughs, heavy with last night’s sleet. He 
w r ould not be a cry-baby ! He would instead 
show up the person most to blame for Manuers 
desertion of him ! Manuel, who made all the 
ioy of life for him. 

That night Gustavus wrote from out of his 
burdened heart a composition on girls. Com- 
positions were to be read before the committee 
who visited the schools in the middle of the 
term. Gustavus had been chosen to the honor 
of reading a composition before the committee. 
Viola had hesitated to appoint him, lest she 
should be accused of partiality to her brother ; 
but it was so well understood that he was pos- 


THE VOYAGE OF THE DELIGHT 103 


sessed of literary gifts that the scholars insisted 
that he should be one of the honored few. 

Gustavus had begged to decline. The reason 
was, at first, his disgust that Manuel had been 
expelled from school. Now he would write it, 
hut he was glad that he had refused, because 
now Viola would not have to see it beforehand. 
The committee should hear his composition be- 
fore any one else. 

It was already known that they were not even 
going to reprimand Viola for that affair of the 
key, and although she had cried so on the wharf, 
she was now holding her head as high as ever. 
Wasn’t that just like a girl? Gustavus would 
like to know. 

The writer of the composition could choose 
his own subject, and for a long time now Gusta- 
vus’s heart had burned to tell the world what he 
thought of girls. 

He wrote the composition in the privacy of 
his own small room under the eaves, and al- 
though his heart burned, his fingers were numb. 
And there was need of haste, lest Viola or his 
mother should see his light through the chinks. 
Working under these difficulties, he was afraid 
that he had not made his meaning quite plain — 


104 


A CAPE COD BOY 


that the allusions to Viola were too delicately 
veiled ; and he resolved to read it loudly and 
severely, and to look meaningly at Viola if he 
thought people were missing the point. 

Viola looked very much astonished when he 
arose, the very first one, in answer to her de- 
mand for compositions ; and Lucetta Baker, in 
a pink cashmere dress, and with her hair curled 
in fine ringlets by the kitchen poker, began to 
whimper, because she had been promised that 
she should read her composition first. Viola 
would have sternly bidden him sit down and 
await his turn, but old Deacon Ryder, one of 
the committeemen, said, kindly, 

“ Let’s hear what the young man has to 
say.” 

And Gustavus, with his head well up and an 
apple bloom upon his firm, round cheeks, read 
his composition on girls. He had a lisp that 
would not be controlled, but he read in a loud 
and high-keyed voice : 

GIRLS 

“ Girls are sometimes well-meaning people, 
but they are a lower order of jiature, and they 
can never hope to be men. God made them, as 


THE VOYAGE OF THE DELIGHT 105 


lie made the cow and the caterpillar, and they 
must be satisfied. It will not afect a girl’s 
morils to let her do up her hair and keep school. 
She can be just as mischeevious and more than 
as if she staid to home and broke all the lamp 
cliimbleys crimping her hair and laid it to the 
boys. Girls think that boys ought to get found 
out, but ‘they do not want to get found out them- 
selves. They would rather cheat and drive a 
honorable young man away from friends and 
home to tempt the dangers of the raging deep, 
because he would not tell of her.’’ 

Viola’s cheeks were blazing by this time, and 
there was a hysterical lump in her throat which 
would not let her stop Gustavus when she tried 
to. And besides the committee there were other 
visitors on the platform listening to that dread- 
ful boy ! 

“ Up stairs masters do not aprove of a girl 
that cheats, and they stand up for the good 
young man, but you will see before the term is 
over that she will have him coming to see her 
Sunday evenings, and taking her to singing- 
school, and he will not know that she has bor- 
rowed her brother’s egg money out of his green 
box, when he did not know it, to buy the blue 
ribbon round her neck tied in a bow behind. 


106 


A CAPE COD BOY 


Such is the morils of girls, and boys should 
learn in the days of their youth to beware of 
them, such as are not their sisters too, for God 
has given them sisters to show them what girls 
are, so there is no excuse for them, and we must 
not be too hard on them, for they cannot sail a 
vessel nor play base-ball, and if anybody hits 
them they cry, so we must pity them, for their 
intelecks are not like ours.” 

There was a subdued titter all over the room 
before Gustavus had finished. Even the old 
minister’s portly person was shaking under his 
vest. Viola was ready to burst into hysterical 
sobs, but she choked them back and smiled in a 
forced and ghastly w r ay. She called hurriedly 
for the next, and Lucetta Baker read a nice lit- 
tle composition on winter, and Gustavus felt as 
if his effort had fallen quite flat. He was afraid 
people hadn’t understood that he meant Viola ! 
But when he went home he changed his mind. 
It was a very bad time, indeed, that little Gus- 
tavus had with his mother and Viola, weeping 
together, and his brother Ludovico sternly re- 
proaching him for disgracing his sister. 

Moreover, there was a birch rod hanging be- 
hind the wood-shed door, and Mother Nickerson 


THE VOYAGE OF THE DELIGHT 107 


promised solemnly that she would ply it vigor- 
ously the next morning. 

But very early in the morning Gustavus, with 
his small worldly possessions tied up in one of 
Viola’s old gingham aprons, was throwing sand 
up at young Josiah Doane’s window. He was 
going to Boston to seek Manuel and his fortune ; 
would Josiah go, too? 

Young Josiah, though tempted, could not go, 
for Manuel had bidden him take care of the 
family in his absence. So, with only his sore 
and foolish heart for company, Gustavus took 
the road to Boston to find Manuel and become 
his partner in the lumber business. A long, 
long road for short legs, and Boston would be 
big to a boy whose world had all lain within ten 
miles of Scauset. Would Manuel ring the 
bells for him when he got to Boston ? 


CHAPTER VII 


WITH FATE AGAINST HIM 

The Delight, Captain Manuel Silva, was en- 
gaged in carrying lumber from Boston to Pu- 
tasket Beach. It was a job that would last until 
there was lumber enough for the great new 
addition to the hotel ; and the seventeen-year- 
old Captain, carefully reckoning profits by the 
aid of the arithmetic that had “ gone into his 
head ” in the Scauset school, decided that it was 
a job that would pay very well. The hotel 
proprietor was disposed to do well by the young 
Captain, and to have faith in him, because the 
clams that he had brought to him from Horse- 
shoe Island had invariably been “ monster ” 
clams, according to agreement. 

“ One chance he bring another/’ Manuel said, 
happily. But Jo Fretas, the mate, thought the 
business a little slow. Manuel would not let 
him stay ashore when the Delight lay all night 
108 


WITH FATE AGAINST HIM 


109 


at a Boston wliarf, lest they should not catch 
the earliest breeze in the morning. 

There was no watchman at the hotel, and the 
workmen were careless with their pipes, and 
Manuel kept a careful lookout. His room was 
in the back of the house, and sometimes he had 
heard queer noises at night in the kitchen and 
out-building. Probably they were, as the work- 
men said, only the wild winter winds that went 
prowling and howling along the coast. 

The landlord had business elsewhere, and was 
away most of the time, and ’Bastus, the husband 
of Diomeda, who cooked for the men, was ad- 
dicted to a black bottle, which made him worse 
than useless as a caretaker. 

So it was not strange that Manuel tried to 
sleep with one eye open, and that he sprang out 
of bed, only half awake, one night when he 
heard such very unusual sounds, directly be- 
neath his bedroom, as the clanking of a chain 
and a baby’s cry. 

The chain seemed to be dragged along 
through the out-building, and then Manuel was 
sure that he heard it clanking into the great 
kitchen. 

Manuel was afraid, although he was Captain 


110 


A CAPE COD BOY 


of the Delight and had been sailing-master of a 
yacht, but he had not the least idea of allowing 
fear to rule him. 

He stole softly down the stairs. He meant to 
reconnoitre, unseen, and then get the foreman’s 
pistol, if it were necessary. As he went down 
stairs it began to seem to him as if those strange 
noises must have been a particularly bad dream. 

But as he stepped into the kitchen a door 
slammed, as if it had been shut by the wind. 
There were eatables on the kitchen table — a 
broken mince pie, and a pitcher of milk, over- 
turned. 

As lightly as he had stepped, those stairs had 
creaked, Manuel knew. He rushed to the outer 
door. As he opened it and stepped out his foot 
was tripped by something — a long chain that 
had caught tightly between the knob and the 
great bolt of the door, and been broken ; no, so 
strong a chain would not break, unclasped from 
something when it was found that it could not be 
quickly unfastened from the door. 

Manuel ran out. The night was dark and 
starless, and he could see no one. He listened, 
but his keen ear could detect no sound of foot- 
steps. 


WITH FATE AGAINST HIM 


111 


Diomeda scolded, the next morning, about 
“ that low-down nigger ’Rastus,” who had gone 
down stairs in the night to eat up her mince pies. 
It was an old trick of his, she said, to break a 
pie instead of cutting it, like a nigger dat re- 
spected liisself. 

Manuel questioned ’Rastus in private. The 
old fellow grinned broadly, although he shook 
his head until the great gold hoops in his ears 
danced. He said for sho’ he didn’t remember 
putting the food upon the table. He had gone 
down to the pantry in the night, he admitted, 
having a misery in his side which was eased only 
by mince pie. 

There was no reliable information to be 
obtained from ’Rastus. Manuel suspected that 
something besides mince pie had been taken to 
relieve the “ misery.” But the chain was no 
dream, and it did not belong to ’Rastus. Manuel 
planned to get the better even of the wind, so 
that he need not stay away from the hotel at 
night — which it was somewhat difficult to do, 
even for a “ smart little Portergee.” 

But there were no more noises, and he began 
to be a little ashamed of himself for being so 
disturbed. So a week or two went by, and in 


112 


A CAPE COD BOY 


the meantime a letter lay in the Boston Post 
Office addressed to “ Mr. Manuel Silva, Esq.,” 
and claimed by no one. 

It was postmarked at a little town on the 
edge of the Cape, just where the railroad train 
begins to slip into the sand banks and the sky 
dips down into the sea. And what they would 
read at the Dead Letter Office in Washington, 
after the clerk had found that there were so 
many Manuel Silvas in Boston that it was use- 
less for the carriers to try to deliver it, was this : 

“ Dear Manny — this is to Let you No i am in 
Grate Truble. that is a Frend of mine is for 
He is verry laim. i rann awa from scauset if 
you sa it is Foolishnes you Did 2. there are 2 
manny Girls and thay did Nott like a composi- 
tion i maid about Them, i am afrade you will 
Bee gon to Kuber Befour i get thare it is an 
Orfle weighs to boston, but i could get thare 
if i was alone if i Frose or Starved i would or 
got Took Up but He is laim. at First i wanted 
Him to start a Sho but now i Like Him so 
mutch i cannott leaf Him. thay will shott Him 
bekos He is laim. so Rome if you can i am in 
Distres. Bespeckfully yours, 

“ Gustavus Nickerson. 

“ P. s. He is a bare. 

“ p. s. i Like Him.” 


WITH FATE AGAINST HIM 113 

This was the letter that was prevented by 
cruel fate from reaching the hand for which it 
was intended. If Manuel had known that his 
“heart’s friend,” Gustavus Nickerson, was jour- 
neying on foot from Scauset, beset by the perils 
of winter and rough weather, he would have 
hastened to his relief whatever might become of 
the carrying trade. 

But he was full of other cares — heavier ones, 
now — than those of a watchman. The building 
of the hotel addition had come to a sudden end 
while it was yet far from finished. One work- 
man remained to take charge of the cargoes of 
lumber that were still brought from Boston. 

It was reported that the landlord had money 
troubles, but he assured Manuel that the build- 
ing would begin again soon, and that his bill 
for carrying lumber would be paid as soon as 
the work was done. 

Diomeda and ’Rastus were gone now, and 
Manuel and Jo were obliged to take their meals 
at the one little eating-house on the beach that 
remained open through the winter. 

They had to ask for credit, too, which galled 
Manuel’s spirit sorely. And yet he had faith 
in his friend the landlord, who had always 


8 


114 


A CAPE COD BOY 


paid well and promptly for the “ monster ” 
clams. 

Manuel liad to cheer Jo, who would not be a 
philosopher and understand what Manny told 
him, that “ business he go up and down, and one 
must keep the heart stout.” 

His troubles had driven the thought of burg- 
lars from Manuel's mind, and he slept soundly 
at night, until one night he found himself sit- 
ting up in bed, conscious that he had been star- 
tled from his sleep by an unusual noise. He 
listened breathlessly. Some one was trying to 
open the outer door, which was almost beneath 
the window of his room. Then the window was 
tried, the same window that had been opened 
by the burglars who had left the chain behind 
them. 

Manuel hurried down. The noise had ceased, 
but when he opened the door a huge shape 
arose before him in the moonlight. Great paws 
waved supplicatingly, like those of a begging 
dog. It was a tame bear. 

Manuel had met many bears in his wander- 
ings, and for only a moment was he afraid. 

“ My friend, was it you that left the chain, 
and have you come for it?” he asked, jocosely. 


WITH FATE AGAINST HIM 


115 


But he put his hand on the pistol that the 
landlord had given him when the others went 
away. Tame bears did not often wander to 
people’s doors without their keepers. 

As he came down on all fours again the bear 
uttered a little puppyish whine of pain, and 
Manuel saw that the snow around the door was 
darkly stained, as if with blood. 

A boy’s figure came hesitatingly out of the 
darkness. 

“ He’s so hurt, or I wouldn’t have tried to get 
in,” said a boy’s voice, with a pathetic break in 
it. “ I had to make him walk to keep us from 
freezing, and that made the place where he was 
shot bleed again. If you’ll only let us stay 
somewhere till morning ! — he’s an orfle good 
bear, and I’m a friend of Manuel Silva, the Cap- 
tain of the Delight. You must know him.” 
There was a ring of pride now in the broken, 
appealing voice. “ It’s right around here some- 
where that he has got a job. I’ve been asking 
folks for a week ; it seemed as if we never 
should get here, and I wrote to him and he never 
answered.” A great sob tore its way from 
Gustavus’s throat. He was but small, and he 
had been brave so long ! 


116 


A CAPE COD BOY 


Manuel stepped from the shadow of the door- 
way, and put his arm around Gustavus’s neck, 
while the bear growled witli the suspicion of one 
who has known the unkindness of the world. 

If you are a Cape Cod Yankee hoy, even a 
small one, you don’t generally like to have 
another boy kiss you. It makes you feel fool- 
ish. But when Manuel’s warm Portuguese 
kisses fell on Gustavus’s frost-bitten, tear-stained 
cheeks, the small boy’s heart gave one great 
bound from despair to joy. They seemed to 
wipe out all the long foot-sore miles that he had 
covered since leaving Scauset, all the hunger 
and cold and perils and troubles of the way. 

He had rung the bell for Manny when he 
returned to Scauset, and brought the fire-engines 
from far and near, but it was not such a wel- 
come as this ! Manny built a roaring fire in the 
great kitchen stove, and routed out the restau- 
rant proprietor, although it was the dead of the 
night, and secured such eatables as he had. 
One should not even hesitate to ask for credit 
for his heart’s friend. 

The bear shared the comforts of the kitchen 
fire and the food with evident appreciation, and 
Manuel carefully bound up his wound. 


WITH FATE AGAINST HIM 


117 


“ They say he is a fine hear, and I shall be 
took up for haying him,” said Gustavus. “ But 
how can I, when I didn’t steal him ! Some 
hunters had shot him. I found him in the 
deep woods.” 

“ He must have run away,” said Manny, ex- 
amining the animal critically. “ And how 
come it that you are in the deep woods ?” 

Gustavus had not yet shown great freedom in 
relating his experiences on the road, but Gus- 
tavus was very hungry, and was deeply en- 
gaged in satisfying his inner boy. Manuel 
spoke with much sympathy His eyes had 
even filled with tears as he looked at Gustavus’s 
once chubby cheeks, so thin now that his own 
mother would scarcely have known him, and at 
his shoes, so worn that they showed a bit of 
bulging blue yarn stocking, and even the end of 
a small toe that must have been frost bitten. 

But Gustavus’s eyes were cast down, the color 
arose to his cheeks. “ I was running away from 
being took up,” he said, in a muffled voice. 

Manuel’s eyes widened with surprise and 
horror. Such a disgrace as to be arrested had 
never fallen upon a Scauset boy ! But of course 
it was a mistake. His heart’s friend could never 


118 


A CAPE COD BOY 


have merited such misfortune. Had not he 
himself known the pangs of undeserved dis- 
grace ? 

“ It was a snowy owl,” explained Gustavus, 
his voice muffled by mortification and mouthfuls, 
“ roosting on a fence. I ran back to a barn 
where they let me sleep the night before, and 
borrowed the man’s gun. He wasn’t there, so 
I couldn’t ask him. And of course you don’t 
stop to think when it’s a snowy owl !” 

“ No one stop to think when it is a snowy 
owl,” assented Manuel, sympathetically. “ And 
the man would have you arrest?” he added, 
indignantly. 

“ No, but she did ! the woman that owned the 
owl. He was stuffed ! She had put him out on 
the fence because the moths had stayed in him 
since summer. I hit him!” Gustavus’s de- 
jected face brightened a little. “ You’d better 
believe I hit him — if Ludovico never would let 
me fire a gun ! What he was stuffed with flew 
away up in the air ! But the gun kicked.” 
Gustavus’s face fell again. “So the officer she 
sent for ’most got me ! I saw stars all the time 
I was running away. And I lost my bundle of 
clothes. There was an orfle pain in my head, 


WITH FATE AGAINST HIM 


119 


and I was so dizzy in the woods that I couldn’t 
walk. I guess I was there two nights without 
anything to eat, and I know I should have 
frozen if it hadn’t been for the bear. You’d 
better believe I was scared when I waked up, 
early in the morning, and found I was snuggled 
up to a bear ! And then I thought I must have 
died and gone to Heaven, because, instead of 
eating me up, he was licking my hand. I 
didn’t believe there could be good bears except 
in Heaven ; and I thought I’d got the better of 
Viola, for she always said I wouldn’t go there. 
Of course when I got wide-awake and my head 
felt better, I wasn’t so silly. I knew he must 
be a tame bear that had been in a show. There 
was one over to Kingstown once, but Viola 
wouldn’t lend me the money to go, because she 
said that bears were all foolishness ; and then 
she and Emeretta Oakes went, and had ice- 
cream, too. All the trouble I ever had came by 
the way of girls.” 

Gustavus was evidently remembering the 
composition on girls that had caused him to run 
away from home. The little switch behind his 
mother’s door seemed a very slight trouble 


now. 


120 


A CAPE COD BOY 


Manuel went out of the room as if struck by 
a sudden recollection, and came back with a chain 
which fitted exactly into the hasp on the bear’s 
collar. 

“ I have heard great shuffling noise that 
night,” he said, as he told Gustavus of the mid- 
night visit. “ It was the bear ! but not he alone 
have broken the window and unfasten it to get 
in and unbolt the door ! He belong to some 
people. They had to take off his chain that 
night when it caught in the door, and then he 
ran away from them.” 

Gustavus turned pale. “ I expect they would 
take him away from me, don’t you ?” he said, 
hoarsely. 

Manuel lay awake until morning, wondering 
what he should do with Gustavus and the bear. 
He thought it strange that they had not written 
to him from Scauset of Gustavus’s disappear- 
ance, but Gustavus explained that they probably 
thought he had run away to sea, as he had often 
threatened Viola that he would do, and Cap’n 
’Siali would not let Caddy or young Josiah 
write such news, lest Manny should be troubled. 

The first thing was to let them know at 
Scauset that Gustavus was safe, and the next to 


WITH FATE AGAINST HIM 


121 


try to find tlie bear’s owner, even though it 
should break Gustavus’s heart to part with him, 
for the bear was evidently accomplished, and a 
valuable animal. 

The workman who had been left in charge of 
the lumber stopped Manuel as he, with Jo and 
Gustavus and the bear, was going on board the 
Delight the next morning. 

“ You needn’t go to Boston any more !” he 
said. “ I’ve got notice to quit. The landlord 
has failed, and we’ve all got to whistle for our 
pay.” 

Manuel’s heart sank, as even stout hearts will 
do sometimes. 

Little Gustavus was bewildered by this turn 
of affairs. He thought Manuel would be master 
of any situation. And now he didn’t seem 
to know what to do any more than any other 
boy. 

And Jo Fretas said, gloomily, that folks that 
stayed in Scauset and went fishing were the smart 
ones. 

There was a girl waiting at the door when 
they reached the hotel — a thin, dark-skinned 
girl, with a can in her hand. Manuel had given 
her milk one day — for a sick baby. She was 


122 


A CAPE COD BOY 


Portuguese, he was sure, but she would not say 
where she lived. She came running towards 
them when she caught sight of the bear. 

“ Osa ! osa ! it is our bear !” she cried, in 
great excitement. The bear stood up and 
begged. The girl jabbered wildly in Portu- 
guese. There were threatenings of officers and 
jails in her talk. Gustavus had turned pale, 
although he only understood that she claimed 
the bear as hers, and the bear evidently recog- 
nized the claim. 

“ But you — you were breaking in when you 
lost him,” Manuel said, in English. 

“ It was only for the shelter. We were 
frozen,” answered the girl. “ And there is often 
no one at all in the hotels in winter. When we 
found food we ate, we were so hungry, and the 
baby was sick. The bear — we depend upon him 
to get money. The monkey died, and people tire 
of the tambourine alone. We should starve 
without the bear.” 

Manuel’s heart was torn between pity for his 
countrymen’s misfortunes and the thought of 
little Gustavus’s wounded affections. 

“The bear would not run away from him,” 
he said to the girl, with a nod towards Gustavus, 


WITH FATE AGAINST HIM 


123 


whose hand was thrust defensively through the 
bear’s collar. 

“ There was so little to eat and a bear has so 
great an appetite !” said the girl, mournfully. 
“ And they had to beat him to make him do his 
tricks. It is not in the heart even of a bear 
to amuse when he is hungry.” 

“ Where do you stay now ?” asked Manuel. 

The girl pointed hesitatingly to a large hotel 
farther up the beach. 

“You will not tell? We do no harm,” she 
said, anxiously. 

“ The Myles House ? I have seen no one 
there this winter,” said Manuel, wonderingly. 

“ We do not go out in the daytime. But 
there must be milk for the baby.” said the girl. 
“ There is wood, and we keep warm, but we are 
hungry.” 

Manuel slipped the chain into the bear’s col- 
lar when they reached the house, and led the 
way with him, firmly, toward the Myles 
House. 

“ It is their bear, and the right — we must do 
him. But we will not let them illtreat him ! 
Perhaps, now he is lame, they will not want 
him.” 


124 


A CAPE COD BOY 


Jo Fretas followed to the hotel. The tramps 
were his countrymen also. But he said he 
didn’t like to see Portuguese wandering round 
with a bear ; they should always be sailors. He 
had much more respect for this man when he 
found him sunburned, tattoed, and ear-ringed — 
evidently at some time a mariner. 

They were overjoyed at the restoration of 
the bear. The big boy, Emilio, heavy-browed 
and dark as a mulatto, hugged him, and Anita, 
the girl, enticed him to dance a little with her 
tambourine. 

Manuel and Jo Fretas w T ent over to see them 
again in the evening. In spite of his own 
troubles, Manuel’s heart was heavy for them. 
They were his own countrymen. Jo wished to 
advise the man and boy more strongly than 
ever to go to sea. Gustavus followed after, 
choking down his sobs, although he had said he 
would not go. He wished to take leave of the 
bear, for to-morrow he was to sail away with 
Manuel in the Delight somewhere to find “a 
job.” 

Jo carried his fiddle, and played, and Anita 
accompanied him on her tambourine, and the 
bear danced — reluctantly. And he tried to fol- 


WITH FATE AGAINST HIM 


125 


low Gustavus when they went away — Gus- 
tavus, who dared not look hack, but ran all 
the way home with a bursting heart, and 
was a little bitter against Manuel, who was evi- 
dently not so great and powerful as he had 
seemed in Scauset, and who had left even what 
little jingle there was in his pocket with those 
wicked, thieving people. 

For it was true that Manuel would to-morrow 
face the world penniless, in debt even, with only 
the Delight and his own stout heart to help 
him. 

But it had been enough before ; it would be 
again. So thought Manuel as he closed his 
eyes to sleep, with a thought of the little house 
on the Point, which the good God would surely 
help him to guard. 

It was not long past midnight when a great 
cry of fire awakened him. His room was light, 
the whole sky seemed ablaze. It was the Myles 
House, the great hotel where they had spent the 
evening before. 

The hotel was burned to the ground ; there 
was from the first no hope of saving it. Manuel 
was anxious for the safety of the Portuguese 
tramps, but daylight showed a note pushed 


126 


A CAPE COD BOY 


under the door of Manuel’s hotel — a hasty 
scrawl in Portuguese : 

“We have taken the advice of the good 
Joseph Fretas, and have gone to sea.” 

Gone to sea ! How could they go ? There 
was not a vessel at the Putasket wharves except 
the Delight. Manuel looked wonderingly to- 
ward the shore. The Delight was gone ! 

The color surged over Jo Fretas’s dark face. 

“ Portuguese — and thief!” he murmured, as 
if such a conjunction was never heard of before. 

“ Of course they stole the bear too — the bear 
that you made me give back to them !” whim- 
pered Gustavus. “ When I’ve had such orfle 
hard luck too ! The tunny getting away, and 
the snowy owl being stuffed ; but I could have 
had a show with the bear alone !” 

He looked angrily at Manny. He said in Jiis 
heart that he shouldn’t wonder if Cap’ll Seba 
Oakes, of Scauset, who didn’t like “ Portergees,” 
was a wise man. 

“ You don’t suppose they set the hotel on 
fire?” Jo Fretas was saying huskily to Manuel. 

“ No ; I heard a man say there was a lantern 
tipped over. They went in haste, not long after 


WITH FATE AGAINST HIM 


127 


we left them,” answered Manny, straining his 
eyes over the wide expanse of water. There 
had been a wind all night, a fair wind for the 
open sea. The Delight, by this time, was prob- 
ably far away — the stanch little vessel that was 
his all ! 

Two men were coming hastily toward the 
hotel, one in the dress of an officer. The color 
came and went in Gustavus’s face. 

“ The other man looks just like the snowy 
owl woman’s husband !” he murmured, in terror. 
And he retired hastily — alas ! that it must be 
told of Gustavus — into a great barrel that stood 
near the door. 

But it was upon the shoulders of Manuel and 
Jo Fretas that the officer laid his hand. 

“ I have a warrant for the arrest of both of 
you on the charge of setting fire to the Myles 
House,” he said. When both Manuel and Jo 
uttered a startled denial, he added sharply that 
they were both known to have been there the 
night before. Meanwhile little Gustavus, in the 
barrel, felt his bosom torn by conflicting emo- 
tions. His pride in Manuel was gone. The 
“ smart,” the lucky “ little Portergee,” had lost 
his greatness. He had also lost the Delight, 


128 


A CAPE COD BOY 


which had made all the Scauset boys envy him. 
And he hadn’t treated him very well about the 
bear, either, thought little Gustavus. 

But suddenly his heart thrilled with the old 
affection. Manuel was his friend, who, ever 
since the whale show on Striped Marsh Beach, 
had tried to include him, a small boy, in all the 
big-boy good times. Was that a thing to 
forget ? 

He was Manny, anyway ; there was nobody 
like him ! 

Out of the barrel arose Gustavus, manfully — 
a small, tattered, weather-worn figure. “ I ain’t 
goin’ back on you, Manny, because you’re in 
trouble,” he said, firmly, in his shrill, high- 
keyed voice. “ We’ll stick together! — Scauset 
fellers in about the same fix.” 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE DERELICT DELIGHT 

“It is a hard time, but we fight him through.” 
That was what Manny said. 

A hard time indeed ; for he would get no pay 
for the carrying of lumber in the Delight, which 
he had thought so good a job that he had prom- 
ised Caddy that there should be a new front 
door and a piazza to the old house at the 
Point the next summer. 

Gustavus Nickerson had reckoned up sadly 
how far front door and piazza money would go 
toward getting up a show ; but Gustavus thought 
it was always a mistake to listen to girls. 

There was no prospect that Caddy would get 
her heart’s desire now. And Gustavus Nicker- 
son’s show, which was his heart’s desire, seemed 
never farther off, for the tame bear which he had 
found in the woods had been carried off by the 
Portuguese wanderers on board the Delight. 
9 129 


130 


A CAPE COD BOY 


It was Jo Fretas, the mate of the Delight, who 
seemed most angry with his rascally country- 
men, because of the sarcastic little note, in 
which they explained that they had taken Jo 
Fretas’s advice and gone to sea. Jo Fretas 
shook his strong brown fist toward the sea. 

“ Dogs of Portuguese ! to the ends of the 
the earth will I chase them !” he cried, his dark 
face aflame. And then Gustavus left Manuers 
side and went over to Jo Fretas. That seemed 
to Gustavus the proper spirit. And if they 
chased those people they might possibly get the 
bear. It didn’t seem at all probable to Gus- 
tavus’s mind that so affectionate and accom- 
plished a hear could rightfully belong to such 
people as they. 

But it is difficult to chase people to the ends 
of the earth, however valiant one may feel, with 
an officer’s hand on one’s shoulder. 

Since they couldn’t pursue the robbers, who 
were perhaps by this time far out at sea, Gus- 
tavus felt that the next best thing was to get 
himself arrested. Where should he go, if not 
with Manuel and Jo? Moreover, it hurt one’s 
dignity not to he old enough or of sufficient con- 
sequence to be arrested. 


THE DERELICT DELIGHT 


131 


But by this time it was beginning to be 
proved that the little Portergee was not without 
friends at Putasket Beach. There were few 
winter residents, but they all came speedily to 
the rescue. And from the village near by, where 
they had made Manuel’s acquaintance in the 
“ monster clam-bake’s ” time, an indignant 
crowd arrived as soon as the news of his arrest 
had time to spread about. 

Who could be so stupid as to associate the 
“ smart little Portergee ” with those tramping 
tambourine-players? they demanded. Was it 
not enough that they had stolen his vessel ? 

Moreover, was it not evident that the tramps 
had not meant to set the lire, but had accident- 
ally overturned a lantern in their hasty flight — 
hasty, because there was a fair wind for the 
Delight. 

So the upshot of that matter was that Manuel 
and Jo were not only released, but telegrams 
were sent by the Selectmen of the town to all 
towns along the coast, warning the authorities 
to take possession of a stolen vessel, the Delight, 
owned by Captain Manuel Silva, if she appeared 
in any of their ports. 

That seemed a hopeful measure, but Manuel 


132 


A CAPE COD BOY 


shook his head over it. There was half a barrel 
of “ hardtack ” on board the Delight ; while 
that lasted she would not appear in any port. 
Jo Fretas was in favor of hiring a steam-tug and 
going in pursuit of her, but that would be very 
expensive, and was a scarcely feasible plan with- 
out a penny in their pockets. 

They did manage to telegraph to Link Free- 
man, at Kingstown, for his porgy-boat — Link 
was a friend, and would wait for his pay — only 
to find that the porgy-boat was laid up for 
repairs. 

And now so much time had been lost by the 
arrest, and the wind, which blows, as the sun 
shines, alike for the evil and the good, had been 
so fair to carry the Delight far, far away, that 
pursuit seemed almost hopeless. 

There came a little rift in the cloud of mis- 
fortune just then, as there often does when it is 
at its very biggest and blackest. The landlord 
secured an agreement of his creditors by which 
the lumber which had been carried to the beach 
was given to the workmen in payment of their 
claims, and Manuel had his share — a large 
share ; the workmen insisted that it should be 
so, in sympathy for his loss. 


THE DERELICT DELIGHT 


133 


But this is such a contrary world ! Some- 
times it seems as if nothing would go right ; one 
almost believes, with Jo Fretas, that people 
would better stay at home and go fishing. 
There was such a glut in the market that lum- 
ber would sell for almost nothing. Jo Fretas 
said that was probably why the creditors agreed 
so readily to the “ preferred claim. ” 

Jo could whistle gayly for a breeze in a calm, 
or fiddle fearlessly when waves were rough, but 
in misfortunes that left you without a vessel’s 
planks under your feet he lost heart entirely. 

Besides, those tramps had played a trick. 
Jo admitted that he wasn’t the kind of fellow 
that could ever stand it to have a trick played 
on him. 

Manuel sold a little of the lumber fora small 
price, and paid his debt to the restaurant man ; 
and then there came some news in a letter from 
home that caused him to put on his thinking- 
cap. “ You’re a dear boy to think about the 
new front door and the piazza,” wrote Caddy ; 
“ and it will be especially nice to have it this 
summer, because — only think of it ! — there are 
going to be two new houses built in Scauset. 
Some summer people who were here last season 


134 


A CAPE COD BOY 


are going to build one over on Striped Marsh 
Beach, and Cyrus Hence, the schoolmaster, is 
going to build the other.” 

Both Jo and Gustavus pricked up their ears 
when Manuel read that aloud, as they walked 
from the post-office together. “ He is my friend. 
I am glad that he will live in Scauset,” said 
Manuel. And it was only friendship that 
thrilled his heart at first; the business idea 
came later. 

“ ‘ He is going to be married/ ” he read on, 
“ 4 to a Scauset girl/ ” 

“ Goin’ to marry a girl ! He must be smart!” 
murmured little Gustavus with scorn. 

“ ‘ And you never would guess who it is/ ” 
continued Caddy’s letter. “ ‘ There was so much 
anxiety about little Gustavus that the engage- 
ment wasn’t told of until lately — not until they 
heard that he was safe. But we could all see 
which way the cat jumped, he was so eager to 
console her when she felt so bad about not own- 
ing up about the arithmetic and driving you 
away.’ ” 

Little Gustavus stood stock-still in the road 
and stared ; it seemed as if even his freckles 
stood out with amazement. 


THE DERELTCT DELIGHT 


135 


“ Her ?” he gasped, unbelievingly. 

“ * It is Yiola Nickerson/ " read Manuel, and 
he bobbed his head with emphatic satisfaction. 
“ It is I who tell him first that one must be kind 
to a girl ! If I tell of her as he want me to — " 
Manny heaved a long sigh ; he had seen hard 
times since that winter day when he had left 
Scauset in disgrace. “ I am glad always that I 
did not tell, and more so now !" 

“ He can't never bring her back, can he ?" 
said little Gustavus, with rising spirits. “ I 
guess mebbe I'll go home after the weddin'.” 

“ It is a fine beach, the Striped Marsh Beach," 
said Manuel, meditatively. “ So broad, so long 
as this, that have so many great hotels and 
handsome cottages ! I carry down my lumber 
to build the new houses and many more ! I get 
more — the lumber is so cheap. If I had but 
the Delight !" 

And then Manuel darted away from his com- 
panions, and they saw him going, like an arrow 
shot from a bow, towards the landing. 

“ Something strike him here," said Jo, touch- 
ing his forehead and shrugging his shoulders. 
“ As for me, I take life easier," and he went 
and got his violin and played, sitting upon the 


136 


A CAPE COD BOY 


hotel porch ; for it was a very balmy day for 
March, and little Gustav us felt a homesick long- 
ing for the Marsh that would soon now be grow- 
ing striped with its rosemary and its reeds. 

“ Manny will fix things,” he said, confidently, 
as he sat upon the step and clasped his small, 
patched knee — Manuel had patched it ! “ Yes, 

sir, he will.” For all Gustavus’s faith had re- 
turned, and life had brightened for him since 
his sister Viola was to be married — Viola, who 
thought that faces should be continually washed, 
and holes never made in stockings or jackets, 
and wanted a boy to know grammar and man- 
ners like a girl ! And it was all owing to 
Manuel that she was going to be married — no 
one else could have brought about such good 
fortune ! 

If only Cyrus Dence did not repent and 
bring her back ! he thought, anxiously, for you 
expect misfortune after you have seen the world 
as it shows itself to a penniless boy on a winter 
tramp from almost the tip end of the Cape to 
within a few miles of Boston. 

Manuel was coming up from the landing. 
He tossed his cap into air as he caught his 
friends’ eyes. That was not quite like Manuel, 


THE DERELICT DELIGHT 


137 


who was a self-contained little Portergee, but 
when your heart has been away down, fairly 
into your boots, as the saying is, why it conies 
up with such a rebound — when it gets a chance 
— that it is apt to make you a little beside your- 
self. 

“ It was — Jack Dolliver !” he gasped, as soon 
as he came within hearing. “ I say to myself 
that never was a so red head and not Jack 
Dolliver’s ! And if one do well and despair 
not, good chance he come at last. Jack’s vessel, 
the Abby Ann, she lie here empty. He come 
up with cargo of salt mackerel ; lie keep him 
so long for a market ; and he put in here to 
pay the restaurant man ; since last summer he 
owe him. He put in here empty, and though 
the Abby Ann is old and smell of much fish, 
she is great, she hold much lumber ! Jack will 
carry the lumber and us all — home.” Manny’s 
voice broke suddenly — home, but without the 
Delight ! 

“ It is great good fortune. I sell the lum- 
ber there,” he went on, firmly. “ There is fine 
beach ; it is fine summer place ! We will give 
to Scauset borne.” Manuel meant boom, but 
double o came hard, always. 


138 


A CAPE COB BOY 


Jo’s fiddle stopped in the middle of “ Then 
You’ll Remember Me,” and Gustavus’s freckles 
stood out again. They both felt great respect 
for such manly aims, but Jo asked him if he 
wasn’t putting on frills, and Gustavus said, 
firmly, that for his part he preferred the show 
business to any other. 

But, nevertheless, they worked with a will, 
loading the Abby Ann with Manuel’s lumber, 
even Gustavus, although his small muscles 
ached, even as they had ached on the tramp. 
And on a fine morning, with a lively breeze, off 
went the Abby Ann with a good cargo of lum- 
ber and three Scauset boys, who, at that time 
at least, heartily believed that “ east, west, 
hame’s best !” 

Now Scauset is a little less than fifty miles 
from Boston, as the crow flies, or as a ship with 
a fair wind sails, and yet many things may 
happen on the way. The lively breeze with 
which the Abby Ann had set out still con- 
tinued, but the wind had shifted, and she had 
to beat and make long tacks, and homesick 
hearts grew impatient, and Manuel began to 
fear that the lumber for the two new houses 
would be bought before his load arrived. It 


THE DERELICT DELIGHT 


139 


even seemed possible that the houses might be 
built, the Abby Ann was such an unwieldy old 
hulk, especially when one was used to the trim 
little Delight, that obeyed the helm as an intelli- 
gent horse obeys the rein, and seemed to know 
how to take advantage of the winds herself, 
instead of wallowing around as if she didn’t 
know what to do, like the poor old Abby Ann. 

They were so far off shore that they seemed 
likely to be driven across the Atlantic, when 
they fell in with Nick Briggs, who had been on 
a deep sea fishing trip. 

Nick was a Scauset boy, and he greeted the 
wanderers heartily. 

“ Hullo, Manny ! I knew you’d got home. 
Did you get her off all right ?” he shouted, 
which seemed a little surprising, as they were 
nearly twenty miles from Scauset, and it was 
many weeks since Manuel had been any 
nearer. 

“ Get who off?” shouted Manny. 

“ The Delight — off Horseshoe Ledge.” 

“ You get yourself out ! That was a year 
ago !” answered Manuel. For Nick was always 
one who would have his joke. 

“ No, no! day before yesterday ! Wasn’t it 


140 


A CAPE COD BOY 


you ? I know it was the Delight. There were 
two or three on board/’ cried Nick. 

The distance widened between his little fish- 
ing-boat and the clumsy old Abby Ann, and his 
voice was lost to her crew. 

“ We’ll make Horseshoe Island, anyhow, if 
we don’t get to Scauset till the middle of next 
week !” said Jack Dolliver. But when they 
came near enough to see, there was no vessel 
anywhere near Horseshoe Ledge. Indeed, 
pilots gave it a wide berth, and it was only in a 
thick fog that the Delight had got caught there 
the summer before. 

“ If that was one of Nick Briggs’s jokes, it 
was a heartless one,” thought Jack Dolliver, 
seeing the light fade from Manuel’s eager face. 

“ Some folks are easily fooled,” grumbled old 
Job Freeman, the mate of the Abby Ann, who 
thought it was about hard enough to get to 
Scauset without “ pollywoggin’ all ’round the 
lot.” 

They were forced to make another long tack. 
All around them were vessels that they knew, 
like familiar faces. Before them in the dis- 
tance Manuel had caught sight of one that looked 
strangely familiar. 


THE DERELICT DELIGHT 


141 


It was a long way off ; it was only a little 
dark patch upon the horizon, but any sailor will 
tell you that he knows the trim of his own ship 
as you know the gait of a friend. 

“ Look, the Delight !” cried Manuel, and 
sparks glowed in his sallow cheeks. The 
others didn’t feel sure, but they gave chase 
with all the speed that the poor old heavily- 
laden Abby Ann was equal to. 

It would have been a hopeless chase if 
the lighter vessel had been skillfully steered. 
But old Job Freeman, surveying her through 
a glass, as they came nearer to her, shook 
his head seriously : “ She’s carrying too 

much canvas, and it ’pears to me as if the wind 
was drivin’ of her. Either there’s a drunken 
man at the helum or she’s a derelict.” A derelict 
is an abandoned vessel, afloat at the mercy of 
tide and wind. 

“ They run her aground most likely, if it is 
the Delight,” said Jo Fretas, looking through 
the glass in his turn. “ I knew that fellow was 
no sailor, with all his tattooing ! And then they 
rode off in the tender and left her ! Easy enough 
to row to Fleetwell from Horseshoe Ledge.” 

“ But there’s somebody aboard of her !” ex- 


142 


A CAPE COD BOY 


claimed Manuel, when his sharp eyes had their 
turn at the glass. “ But he is not sailor — or 
else she is herself disabled.” 

The Delight, if it were she, was now pitch- 
ing in the trough of the sea , the waves were 
heavy, and the wind fitful ; she made but little 
progress, and the Abby Ann approached her 
steadily. 

“ It's a wonder she hasn’t gone under before 
this time, carrying full sail like that,” said Jack 
Dolliver. 

“She’s so trim and so stanch, she upset no 
more than a bird !” said Manuel, proudly. “ Oh, 
if I come but once again to her deck !” 

“ You’d better find out who’s there before you 
try to get aboard of her,” said Jo Fretas. “It 
looks to me as if ’twas the bear. They’re just 
about mean enough to go off and leave him, if 
they thought he never could dance again. When 
you do come across mean Portuguese — !” Jo’s 
expressive head-shake amply finished the sen- 
tence. 

Little Gustavus actually trembled as he 
peered through the glass. 

“ If — if it’s my bear he’ll know me,” he said, 
after the manner of the old woman who had a 


THE DERELICT DELIGHT 


143 


little dog at home. “ When he hears my voice 
he’ll stand upon his hind legs and beg.” 

And Gustavus whistled and called sharply, 
cheeringly, across the roaring waves. But the 
figure on the deck, now plainly visible with the 
naked eye, grew no taller, although it moved 
about. 

“ The mischief of it is,” said Jo Fretas, wisely 
wagging his head, “ that you hadn’t better try 
to board that vessel with Cap’n Bruin in com- 
mand ! He’s scared to death, and a bear hates 
the water. When they bring ’em over lots of 
’em die on the way, and the best of ’em get so 
ugly you daren’t go nigh ’em. You’ll find 
the tame is all out of him, but the bear is all 
there !” 

“ Lower the boat and I risk me !” cried 
Manuel, who certainly did not mean to risk 
losing the Delight for fear of a bear. 

“ We’d better go with you, Jo and I,” said 
Jack Dolliver. “I’ve got a pistol, and if Cap- 
tain Bruin shows fight, we’ll put a bullet into 
him.” 

“ No ! no !” screamed Gustavus. “ He’s my 
bear ; Manny knows he is ! I won’t have him 
killed !” 


144 


A CAPE COD BOY 


“ Pooh ! he will never perform again ; his 
skin is the best of him,” said Jo Fretas. 

“ But I like him ! I tell you, I like him !” 
cried little Gustavus. “ When fellers have such 
hard times together as him and me did — ” 

The boat was lowered by this time. Jack 
Dolliver said something about youngsters being 
in the way, but Gustavus went in the boat, 
nevertheless. It was his bear, Manuel said, now 
that the tramps had abandoned it, and he hoped 
that the bear, however frightened he might be, 
would know him. 

“ He will like me, you will see !” said Gus- 
tavus, confidently. And that dreadful Jo Fretas 
said he supposed that small boy was tender. 

The little row-boat had a hard time in a 
choppy sea, and the wind was playing such 
pranks with the Delight that it was dangerous 
business to get alongside her. 

A dreadful cry came constantly to their ears ; 
it seemed partly to be the cry of a human 
creature in terror, and partly the ferocious snarl 
of some wild beast. 

“ I told you the bear would be all back in 
him,” said Jo. And Jack Dolliver kept putting 
his hand on his pistol, even while they were 


THE DERELICT DELIGHT 


145 


maneuvering to get the row-boat into such a 
position that it would be possible to climb on 
board the Delight. 

The bear looked down at them from the 
Delight’s stern. The cry was all savage now, 
and he seemed ready to spring upon the first 
who came near. Little Gustavus stood up in 
the boat. 

“ Bub ! Bub, old fellow ! poor old fellow !” he 
said, chokingly. 

The change that came over the savage creature 
was something wonderful to see. Slowly the 
huge bulk raised itself ; the great paws were 
waved supplicatingly ; the voice was an appeal- 
ing whine. 

“Anyhow, you’d better let Gustavus go alone 
first,” said Jo Fretas, who boasted much ac- 
quaintance with bears. 

But Manuel went, too, and found the savage 
wild beast quite gone, and only the poor, old tame 
bear alone on the abandoned vessel, and feebly 
essaying a few steps, in spite of his lameness, 
when Gustavus hugged him. 

Jack Dolliver went back alone to the Abby 
Ann, and Manuel, the happiest boy in the round 
world, unless it were little Gustavus, once more 


10 


146 


A CAPE COD BOY 


took command of his precious Delight, succeed- 
ing Captain Bruin, who was evidently more than 
glad to resign. 

Jo remained on board the Delight ; he felt it 
to be his duty as mate, whatever might be his 
distrust of the hear ; and the Delight, which 
had been only a little grazed this time by the 
rocks of Horseshoe Ledge, speedily left the 
Ahhy Ann far behind her on the way to 
Scauset. 

“ Cowards of Portuguese!” said Jo, scornfully. 
“ They might have known she would float off 
with the tide.” 

“ But they feared the arrest,” said Manuel. 
“And there is always the Lord to watch.” Manny’ 
never doubted that the good God had given back 
his Delight. 

Home to Scauset ! — but on the way Gustavus 
Nickerson had a fright which he will remember 
as long as he lives. 

He gave the hear a good rubbing down to 
make him feel better, and in doing so he took 
off his collar. On the under side of the collar 
was this inscription, written in red ink ; “This 
bear is the great Mezul. He has appeared be- 
fore all the crowned heads of Europe, and won 


THE DERELICT DELIGHT 


147 


over fifty medals and decorations. He is worth 
five thousand dollars.” 

Little Gustavus’s heart beat to suffocation ; 
he felt it thumping in his ears. Worth five 
thousand dollars ! Never should he, little Gus- 
tavus Nickerson, be permitted to have and to 
hold anything worth five thousand dollars ! The 
bear would be taken away from him ; he would 
be sold ! 

He beckoned to Manuel privately. Manny 
could always “ fix things.” 

His eyes opened very wide at the red-ink 
writing. “ And he is your bear ! They can 
never claim him again, those wicked people,” he 
said. “The great Mezul !” 

“ But I want him to be just Bub !” wailed 
little Gustavus. “ At home they will want to 
sell him ! Viola will. She will want a piano 
and lace curtains instead of him.” 

“ But Viola, she will be married, ”said Manuel, 
cheeringly. 

Gustavus shook his head doubtfully. “ We 
gave away our dog, Dandy, but the people 
brought him back because he chewed up things. 
You can never tell,” he said. 

“ Then I tell you what you do,” cried Manuel, 


148 


A CAPE COP BOY 


gayly ; “ you throw the collar overboard — like 
this.” He gave Gustavus’s hand a little jerk, 
and over went the collar into the deep sea. “ Now 
he is only Bub, and no one knows he was the 
great Mezul, worth five thousand dollar — but 
you and me. When we have great show, or 
the home come to Scauset and we are rich, then 
maybe we tell.” 


CHAPTER IX 


THE WAKING UP OF SCAUSET 

It was Grandsir Fretas who first caught sight 
of the Delight as she made her way into Scau- 
set Harbor. Grandpa was sitting on the queer 
little second-story balcony that he had built 
upon his house. He pretended that he was 
looking for the smokestack of a Cunarder, 
which could sometimes be espied on a clear day, 
but Grandma knew that he was looking for the 
Delight. 

He was proud of his young countryman, 
Manuel Silva, and liked to hear him called 
“ the smart little Portergee.” He had sympa- 
thized, too, in the troubles that had sent Manuel 
away from Scauset. Manny had carried him- 
self bravely at home, but while they played 
checkers together, Grandpa Fretas had found 
out about the troubles. Jo Fretas, too, was 
probably on board the Delight, and Jo's 

149 


150 


A CAPE COD BOY 


merry heart and liis fiddle had been missed 
in Scauset. 

“ She's coming !” shouted Grandsir Fretas, 
and put on his tall hat which he had worn 
scarcely at all that winter, and hurried off to 
tell the news. 

Grandma Fretas, all in a flurry, donned her 
best cap, and hurried over to the little house at 
the Point to help Caddy to “ cook up.” When 
the Scauset boats came in, good appetites were 
very apt to come with them. And it was gen- 
erally suspected that Manuel Silva, Jo Fretas, 
and little Gustavus Nickerson had been having 
hard times. Gustavus’s mother had heard that 
he had tramped all the way to Boston, and she 
had cried about it, and had burned, in the 
kitchen stove, the switch that had hung behind 
the door. 

And Gustavus’s sister Viola had actually 
said, with penitent tears, that she “ didn’t care ! 
some of that composition was true.” 

Caddy Doane fell to whisking eggs, to make 
the pudding that Manuel particularly liked, 
just as soon as Grandma Fretas told her the 
news. Caddy was very apt to show the boys 
in practical ways how glad she was to see 


THE WAKING UP OF SCAUSET 151 

them. But when she tied an apron around lit- 
tle Israel's neck and tried to make him help, 
little Israel ran away to the wharf, with the 
long apron tripping him up. 

A pretty time it was to set a fellow to making 
puddings, thought little Israel, when the De- 
light was almost ready to cast anchor, and every 
man and boy in Scauset who could possibly 
leave his work was at the wharf. 

Lucky that it was Saturday and there was no 
school ; it would have been pretty hard for the 
teachers to keep order after it was known that 
the Delight was coming into port. 

Cap'n Seba Oakes had come stumping down 
to the wharf on his wooden leg. 

“ That ain't the Delight ! What be you 
thinkin' of? It’s the Abby Ann, and she’s 
loaded heavy. She went up to Boston with 
fish ; what in nater is she a-bringin' home ?" 

The Abby Ann was, indeed, nearer to the 
wharf than the Delight ; but her trips to Bos- 
ton and return were a very common occurrence, 
and in the excitement of seeing the Delight no 
one had observed that she was heavily laden 
— no one but Cap'n Seba Oakes, who acknowl- 
edged frankly that he “ thought more of native- 


152 


A" CAPE COB BOY 


born Seauset boys and their vessels than he did 
of that little Portergee.” 

Cap’n ’Siali Doane was on the wharf, and he 
pointed an eager trembling forefinger towards 
the Delight, just then rounding the Point. 

“ She’s empty enough, anyhow ! I expect that 
little Portergee has got clean out o’ pocket, and 
is cornin’ home to be took care of,” piped Cap’ll 
Seba, shrilly. 

“ He’d be Manny still, if he had, and he’d 
be cornin’ to own folks,” said Cap’n ’Siali, in 
his quavering old voice. 

As soon as the Abby Ann dropped anchor 
her Captain was greeted with a chorus of jocu- 
lar comments and questions. Had he mistaken 
Seauset for New York? Was he expecting to 
build a hotel or only a block of stores ? 

“ Lumber consigned to Manuel Silva, Esq. 
Another load to come. His business what lie’s 
going to do with it,” answered the Captain, 
shortly. 

Cap’n ’Siah’s anxious wrinkles smoothed 
themselves into a broad smile as he turned to- 
wards Cap’n Seba Oakes. 

“ ’Pears to have lit on his feet ag’in f” he said, 
proudly. 


THE WAKING UP OF SCAUSET 


153 


“ What in nater is the foolhardy little Port- 
ergee goin’ to do with all that lumber, and why 
didn’t he fetch some of it in his own vessel ?” 
cried Cap'n Seba. “ And what kind of a new 
figger-head has he got to the Delight?” 

For there was a very queer, tall figure to be 
seen on the Delight’s bow as she came steadily 
to shore. The bear that had been deserted by 
the cruel Portuguese on the Delight, when the 
vessel upon which they had run away had got 
aground upon Horseshoe Ledge, was still very 
lame, but he could stand upon his hind legs and 
shoulder arms, and Gustavus Nickerson had 
felt that this would ju’oduce a fine effect as the 
Delight came into port. 

People would not know what a wonderful 
bear he was. For a moment Gustavus almost 
regretted that the certificate that the bear was 
the great Mezul, the performing bear that had 
delighted all the crowned heads of Europe, had 
been dropped into the sea. It had been the 
only safe course, since the certificate had set 
forth that the bear was worth five thousand dol- 
lars, and Gustavus had felt sure that he would 
be taken away from him and sold, his people 
were so poor. 


154 


A CAPE COD BOY 


“ You must work for them like a man, since 
you will not sell the bear !” That was what 
Manuel had said. And when Gustavus had 
owned his fear that he should boast to “ the 
fellers ” that the bear was worth five thousand 
dollars Manuel had said earnestly, “ Your mind 
you must strengthen him, and never tell what 
you make him up not to !” 

“ A bear ! a bear !” shouted the possessors of 
younger eyes than Cap’n Seba Oakes’s, and 
many small hearts were wrung with envy of 
Gustavus Nickerson, who had run away from 
home, and returned triumphantly, in the De- 
light, with a bear. 

But it may be set down here, that thereafter 
there was in Scauset no such discourager of run- 
ning away as Gustavus Nickerson. He can- 
didly expressed the opinion that any boy who 
did it was a fool. 

The crowd on the wharf cheered for the little 
Portergee and then for little Gustavus, which 
made him hang his head and remember, with 
shame, that he had run away, then it cheered 
impartially for Jo Fretas and his fiddle, and — 
a little faintly, and chiefly in boys’ voices — for 
the bear. 


the Waking up op scauset 


155 


Scauset was, in fact, wholly unacquainted with 
bears, and cherished a not unnatural prejudice 
against them. Cap’n ’Siali’s pride had given 
way suddenly to anxiety. 

“ You ain’t expectin’ to find a market hereto 
Scauset for the lumber, be you, Manny?” he 
asked, nervously wiping the wen on the top of 
his head. “ They’ve been talkin’ for ’most 
twenty years about buildin’ a town-hall and a 
new church, but ’tain’t likely they’ll get at it in 
a hurry.” 

Manuel smiled reassuringly into the kindly, 
anxious old face, although, in truth, doubt 
weighed heavily upon his own heart; it was 
so difficult to get Scauset to do anything in a 
hurry. 

“ Lumber is cheap. I will make boom — 
building boom !” he said, stoutly. 

“A buildin’ boom?” repeated Cap’n ’Siali, 
slowly. “ Why, Manny, a hurricane is more 
likely to strike Scauset than that ! You liain’t 
been and bought all that lumber, calc’latin’ on a 
buildin’ boom strikin’ Scauset ! Well, I declare, 
Manny, you hain’t got over bein’ a resky little 
Portergee !” 

Asher Baker came hurriedly down the pier. 


156 


A CAPE COD BOY 


He was the man with whom Manuel had once 
had a little difficulty about the Striped Marsh 
show. He lived near Striped Marsh, and was 
the Nickersons’ nearest neighbor. “ Calc’latin’ 
to sell reasonable, Manuel ?” he demanded, and 
all the muscles of his face twitched. He had a 
nervous disease, the result of making many in- 
ventions — none of which had ever succeeded. 
“ I’m expectin’ to need some lumber myself, in 
the course of a year or two !” 

“ It’ll be right here time you need it, Asher,” 
said Cap’n Seba Oakes. And the crowd laughed 
a little — as a crowd will laugh at a small joke — 
even though it was proud of its “ little Porter- 
gee.” Manuel only smiled until he showed all 
his strong, white teeth, although the red flamed 
in his tawny cheeks. Cyrus Dence, the school- 
master, laid his hand on Manny’s shoulder just 
then ; he got a real Portuguese hug — and he 
returned it. They had understood each other, 
those two, ever since a little affair concerning 
Viola Nickerson and a key to the arithmetic. 

“ I am going to build a little house over on 
the Striped Marsh road, and I want to engage 
you to furnish the lumber !” said the school- 
master in so loud a voice that every one heard. 


THE WAKING UP OF SCAUSET 


157 


And he did not look in the least sheepish, as 
little Gustavus thought he ought to, since it was 
because he was going to marry his sister Viola 
that he needed to build a little house. Viola 
was certainly very agreeable to-day. She had 
kissed little Gustavus and cried over him. But 
she did not yet know that he was the owner of 
the bear. 

Manuel walked homeward with Cap’n ’Siah 
and Grandsir Fretas and Jo, while young 
Josiah and little Israel, who was still embar- 
rassed by the apron, divided their attention be- 
tween Manuel and the bear. 

So great a crowd followed the bear that, until 
they turned into the Striped Marsh road, Viola 
had not observed that it was Gustavus who was 
leading him. Then she uttered a little scream ; 
it wasn’t what Viola could do in the way of a 
scream if she tried, hut it made people run to 
see what was the matter. 

“ Oh, Gustavus, let the dreadful creature 
go-o-o! Won’t somebody shoot him?” she 
cried. 

Gustavus placed himself before the bear, and 
his face grew so white that the freckles stood 
out big and yellow. 


158 


A CAPE COD BOY 


“Anybody that shoots him will have to shoot 
me first !” he said, firmly. 

“ Then let him run away into the woods ; oh, 
do, sonny, that's a good boy !” wailed Viola. 

“Let him run away!" echoed Gustavus, and 
his freckles were swallowed up now in a wrath- 
ful redness. “ He’s the great Me — He’s 
worth — ’’ 

“You shut yourself up!’’ shouted Manuel, 
and people stared at him in amazement, for his 
Portuguese politeness very seldom forsook him. 

Gustavus had turned pale again, and he swal- 
lowed a great lump in his throat. He had 
almost revealed the great secret, as he would 
not have done for worlds ! That was what a 
provoking girl, like Viola, could make a fel- 
low do ! 

“ He’s my bear — mine and Manuel’s,’’ he 
said, stoutly, as he recovered his presence of 
mind. 

“ Then you let Manuel take him !’’ cried 
Viola, sharply. “ He may be equal to a bear, 
but you’re not!" 

Now, could a girl say a meaner thing than 
that? And the crowd cheered! It seemed to 
be applauding the compliment to Manuel, and 


THE WAKING UP OF SCAUSET 


159 


not thinking much about Gustavus Nickerson's 
feelings, anyway ! 

“ I should like to know where you thought 
you were going to keep him ?” continued Viola, 
evidently encouraged by the applause of the 
crowd. 

And even in that moment of excitement Gus- 
tavus resolved to he firm with Cyrus Deuce ; he 
would have Manuel (who understood business) 
draw up a paper and make Cyrus Deuce sign 
it, agreeing that he would never bring Viola 
back after he had married her ! 

Viola’s question was the more irritating be- 
cause he did not himself know where he was 
going to keep the bear, and was very anxious 
about the matter. 

“ I should think anybody must be stupid not 
to know that I’m going to keep him in our 
woo — wood-shed !” he shouted, with an angry 
stammer. 

Viola uttered another little scream, and all 
the girls in the crowd echoed it. 

Manuel wiped his head anxiously. It was 
plain that Scauset was not going to know how 
to adapt itself to a bear. There were no cellars 
in the town, the sandy soil making them almost 


160 


A CAPE COD BOY 


an impossibility, and people generally kept their 
vegetables in their wood-sheds ; they probably 
could not be induced to think that even a civil- 
ized bear could be trusted in such a place. 

“ With a Spanish vessel lurkin’ outside and a 
dangerous wild beast let loose in the town, 
Scauset ’pears to be kind of a resky place to 
stay in,” piped Cap’ll Seba Oakes, in his high- 
keyed voice. 

A Spanish vessel outside ! Manuel pricked 
up his ears, and so did Jo Fretas — Jo, who 
longed to carry his light heart and his fiddle to 
the war with Spain. 

There was a little good-natured jeering about 
the Spanish vessel. There had been a rumor 
that one had been seen off Kingstown Harbor, 
but no one in Scauset had seen it, and Cap’ll 
Seba was generally considered an “ alarmist.” 

“ I only hope there ain’t any Spanish spies or 
sympathizers round here ! There ain’t no ques- 
tion about Portergees born on the Cape, but 
when they come from nobody knows where — ” 

There was a wild hurrahing for the “ little 
Portergee ” — all the boys in Scauset had accom- 
panied Manuel and the bear towards the Point 
and the Striped Marsh — and the wrath that 


THE WAKING UP OF SCAUSET 161 

had blazed in Manuel’s face died away in a 
laugh. 

Cap’n Seba found it convenient to go stump- 
ing home across lots. He had often made the 
boys angry, but they had never before been re- 
enforced by a bear. 

Cap’ll ’Siah laid his hand on Manuers shoul- 
der ; it was almost a grasp. With Cap’n Seba’s 
words had come the sudden fear — an awful tug 
at his heart — that Manuel might wish to go and 
fight for Spain. It was Southern, not Yankee, 
blood that was warm at his heart and glowed in 
his dusky face. 

Gustavus Nickerson was pulling at Manuel 
on the other side. 

“ I don’t know nothin’ what I’m goin’ to do 
with him ! Anybody can boss that hollers like 
Viola,” he said, dejectedly. 

“ We have a wood-shed chamber, and Caddy 
she never scream,” said Manuel, reflectively. 
And then he spoke a few persuasive words, in 
a low tone, to Cap’n ’Siali. 

“ Why — why, Manny, I don’t want to say 
nothin’ against your fetchin’ home anything 
you want to, but it does appear as if a bear 
would be kind of extry to our house. Their 


11 


162 


A CAPE COD BOY 


ways would seem to be kind of different from 
anything we’re accustomed to,” said Cap’n ’Siah, 
mildly. “And seem’ that Caddy keeps her pre- 
serves in the wood-shed chamber — ” 

“ I give word of honor for him ! I know he 
is a bear of heart and mind,” said Manuel, 
earnestly. For Manuel had observed the affec- 
tion that the great Mezul showed for little Gus- 
tavus. 

Meanwhile Scauset was beginning to talk 
about lumber and building. Uncle Saul Nick- 
erson had come over from Tooraloo, and ordered 
lumber of Manuel to build a new barn and a 
back-yard fence. 

Now Scauset was not going to be outdone by 
Tooraloo ! Abner Atwood said he had been 
calculating for five or six years to build a barn 
that was big enough to hold all his marsh hay, 
and he guessed now was his time. And fences ! 
Everybody discovered, suddenly, that you 
couldn’t “ keep your door-yard slick ” without 
one. 

Then Phineas Doane and Lizy Freeman, who 
had been keeping company for ten years, decided 
to marry and build a house, because lumber was 
so cheap! And, after that, if the Selectmen 


THE WAKING UP OF SCAUSET 


163 


didn’t call a meeting to consider the long-de- 
layed matter of building a town-hall ! 

Manuel wrote to the lumber dealers, from 
whom he had carried supplies to the Putasket 
House all winter, and the reply assured him that 
he could have lumber at low prices and with long 
credit. Nobody who had any dealings with 
Manuel was afraid to trust him, and a reputation 
like that is as good as money — to say nothing 
of its being far, far better ! 

The Abby Ann was going to Boston for an- 
other load of lumber, and the Delight, also, to 
bring all the freight she could. Jo Fretas was 
going as mate. But on the very morning when 
the two vessels were to sail a queer thing hap- 
pened — one of the comparatively small things 
that often interfere with great undertakings. 

Manuel arose at four o’clock — there was a 
fair wind, and they were to get off as soon as 
possible — and went into the wood-shed chamber 
to see the bear, a nd, loand behold ! there was no 
bear, and there were no preserves ! 

Caddy’s mosquito-netting had been torn from 
the window, and one blind that had been fast- 
ened was partly torn from its hinges. 

“ He never did it alone !” said Gustavus Nick- 


164 


A CAPE COD BOY 


erson firmly, when Manuel’s persistent whistling 
had brought him across the field. “ Somebody 
stole him and the preserves! We ought to 
have had a guard for him !” Gustavus was 
white, and his legs shook under him. “ It’s 
awful times anyhow. They’ve caught a Span- 
ish spy over to Kingstown !” 

“ Come,” beckoned Manuel. The sandy road 
had been moistened by a shower in the night, 
and in it Manuel had suddenly discovered tracks. 
“ It is towards the woods that he have gone !” 

Gustavus thought they would better go 
in search of the sheriff. His courage was 
equal to a bear, but not to a Spanish spy. 

But Manuel led him on. He had found a 
stone of the wall that bordered the road cov- 
ered with splinters of glass, and little trickles 
of red jelly. He began to think that Gustavus 
underrated the abilities of the great Mezul. 
There was a trail of the shattered glass and 
jelly across the field to the w r oods. 

Gustavus prudently lagged behind until 
Manuel’s shout led him to the great hollow 
pine-tree that had been struck by lightning 
years before. Manuel had followed the trail of 
broken glass to the tree, and had found the 


THE WAKING UP OF SCAUSET 


165 


great hollow filled with Caddy’s jars and tum- 
blers of sweetmeats, carefully packed away, only 
a few of them having been broken. 

“ I think he have done it every bit himself,” 
said Manuel, whose opinion of the bear’s abilities 
had increased with each day of acquaintance. 
“ He knock one glass down, and find that it is 
sweet; then he plan to hide all. We must get 
a wheelbarrow and carry the preserves home 
before Caddy is up. Then will we look for the 
bear.” 

To Gustavus’s mind this was a reversal of 
the proper order of things, but he submitted, 
and the preserves were soon on their way home 
in the wheelbarrow. 

As they reached the house, Cap’ll Seba Oakes 
came stumping along the road. 

“ Heard the news ?” he cried shrilly. “ The 
store’s been broken into ! All the canned 
things and sweet stuff stolen, a blind broke off, 
and a window smashed in ! I expect nothin’ 
but what there’s another Spanish spy round ! 
What in nater have you got in that wheelbarrer, 
you little Portergee ? I thought you was goin’ 
to Boston this mornin’ ?” 

Gustavus interposed his stout little person 


166 


A CAPE COD BOY 


between Cap’ll Seba and the wheelbarrow, which 
Manuel had before taken the precaution to cover 
with his jacket. 

“ Land sake ! There’s that bear cornin’ 
across the field,” continued Cap’ll Seba, in some 
excitement. The bear was coming slowly from 
the woods. His leg was bleeding, and he 
stopped often and held it up, as if he were in 
pain. “ You don’t let him go rampagin’ round 
in the night-time, do you ?” Lines of suspicion 
had appeared suddenly in Cap’n Seba’s baked- 
appleface, and his sharp eyes narrowed distrust- 
fully as he looked steadily at the boys. 

Gustavus turned pale and edged up to 
Manuel. 

“You ’n’ me are partners,” he said, aside, 
hoarsely. 

“ I liain’t never expected to live to see Scauset 
infested with wild beasts and Spanish spies,” 
said Cap’n Seba ; “ but when foreigners are 
made so much of — ” 

Manuel wheeled the barrow by him. He said 
nothing, but there was a heavy cloud on his face. 

“ You need not fear ; I stay,” he said to Gus- 
tavus. “ Together we will watch in the wood- 
shed chamber to-night.” 


THE WAKING UP OF SCAUSET 


167 


The bear was very quiet that night, with his 
bruised leg covered afresh with poultices, and 
the cot-bed that Caddy had provided was very 
comfortable. At midnight Manuel was over- 
powered by drowsiness. Gustavus had then 
slept the sleep of the just for more than two 
hours. 

A very queer noise caused them both to spring 
up — nothing less than the clang of the cracked 
old church-bell that had not rung for fifteen 
years. The church congregation was sum- 
moned now by the school-bell. Scauset was 
ashamed of its cracked old bell, now that Toor- 
aloo and Fleetwell had new ones, whose fine 
tones came stealing across the marsh. 

The old bell had rung and the bear was gone ! 
Manuel put two and two together in a bewil- 
dered way, while he threw on his clothes, Gus- 
tavus occupying himself meanwhile with pro- 
testing that he had not been asleep. 

As the two boys approached the church they 
found that half Scauset was hurrying towards 
it also, and the air was full of exclamations of 
wonder and alarm. In the bright moonlight the 
little white church showed itself apparently 
empty and deserted. Cap’n Seba Oakes, who 


168 


A CAPE COD BOY 


lived near the church, was seen to be valiantly 
holding on to the knob of the front door. 

“ Whether it’s a Spanish spy or that tarnal 
bear, I’ve got him. All of ye look out that he 
don’t get out o’ the winders !” he shouted. 

There was great excitement and much specu- 
lation. The old bell-rope was broken ; it hung 
only half-way down the belfry stairs. To ring 
it one must climb the stairs, so narrow and steep 
that they were scarcely more than a ladder. 

Some one ran for the sheriff. Before he ar- 
rived the bell rang again, a louder clang, and it 
was followed by a strange sound to come from 
a church in the small hours of the night — a 
baby’s cry — a petulant shriek that some one 
tried in vain to quiet. 

The sheriff, well armed, opened the door. He 
had a big lantern, and the bolder spirits trooped 
into the church after him. A girl’s face peered 
down from the steep belfry stairs — a dark, 
frightened face. 

“ It’s that Anita, the bear-girl !” whispered 
Gustavus. 

“ Oh, we did not mean to ring the bell !” she 
cried, piteously. “ The baby pull the rope, and 
I could not stop him ! We get in at the window ; 



A GIRL’S FACE PEERED DOWN 










































































■ £ 










THE WAKING UP OF SCAUSET 


169 


it is always right to get into church when you 
have no shelter ! I take the baby up-stairs so 
we could hide. My father is arrest for Spanish 
spy, and Emilio he have to run away, when it 
is only for the bear that we have come, our own 
bear that was carried away from us, and we can- 
not get money to live without him ! He is worth 
oh, much money ! He perform before all the 
crowned heads of Europe.” The girl had de- 
scended the stairs now, reassured, and she spoke 
in a loud, shrill tone. “ He is the great Me — ” 

“ ’Sh ! — ’sh !” came from Gustavus Nickerson 
with startling force. 

Manuel forgot that she was a girl and he a 
polite little Portergee. 

“ You — you shut yourself up !” he cried, 
roughly, the more roughly perhaps because he 
could not see what was going to be done about 
all this. 


CHAPTER X 


THE BUILDING BOOM AND THE BEAR 

“ Bring the girl and the baby home to break- 
fast, Manny !” 

That was the way in which Caddy Doane 
went to work to settle the puzzling problem. 
Here were the Portuguese people, as bold as 
lions, claiming their bear, after they had left 
him to starve on board the Delight, that they 
had stolen ; and Caddy only wanted to be 
sure that the girl and the baby had some 
breakfast ! 

It was the baby, who, catching at the old, 
frayed rope, as they were hidden away on the 
belfry stairs, had rung the bell and aroused all 
Scauset. Cap’ll Seba Oakes proposed to have 
the girl and the baby arrested, as Spanish spies, 
and lodged in Tooraloo jail forthwith. 

Had not the girl admitted that either her 
father or her brother — one could not tell which, 
170 


THE BUILDING BOOM AND THE BEAR 171 


she was so excited and incoherent — had been 
arrested as a Spanish spy, in Kingstown? 

Cap’n Seba, who had hung on nobly to the 
church door-knob, felt that Scauset in general, 
and he in particular, should have the credit of 
discovering two Spanish spies. 

“ Land, Seba, what can you do with a gal and 
a baby, if they be Spanish spies ?” Cap’n ’Siali 
Doane inquired. 

And Cap’n Orrin Saunders, the most influen- 
tial of the Scauset Selectmen, said, gravely, that 
he thought, seeing Scauset had voted to buy 
lumber to build a town hall, it had about as 
much as it could ’tend to, without getting mixed 
up with the Spanish war. 

Cap’n Seba began to think that it wouldn’t 
be well to get mixed up with the Spanish war, 
either ; and, finally, every one agreed to Caddy 
Doane’s proposal, as a comfortable way to settle 
the matter — every one, that is, except Manuel 
and Gustavus, and their opinion wasn’t asked. 

Manuel’s pointed, dark-skinned face actually 
wore a scowl, the first one that had ever appeared 
upon it, for Caddy, when she asked him to carry 
the baby ! The girl was so worn out, Caddy 
said, and she herself must hurry along with 


172 


A CAPE COB BOY 


little Israel, who had come out in his night- 
gown, at the sound of the church-bell, and was 
likely to get his death of cold. 

Manuel scowled, but he carried the baby, 
keeping in the very rear of the procession that 
moved towards Porcupine Point. 

Gustavus followed, but not without forcibly 
expressing the opinion that they would better 
be searching for the bear, that had probably 
been carried off by that rascally Emilio. They 
had, at length, discovered that it was the father 
who had been arrested in Kingstown as a 
Spanish spy. 

Gustavus thought that Manuel was far too 
polite to girls. He seemed to feel that he must 
do whatever Caddy asked him to. Anita kept 
close to Manuel, and clung to the baby’s skirts. 

Her dark face was full of fierce little wrinkles 
that made it look old. “ The girl seem kind, 
but it is you who have stolen our bear, when 
you know that without him we starve !” she said, 
piteously. “ How can I know what you will do 
to the baby ?” 

“ Well, if you ain’t a cool one — even for a 
girl !” burst forth Gustavus from his full heart. 
“ Don’t you know that you can be took up for 


THE BUILDING BOOM AND THE BEAR 173 


running away with the Delight ? And you’ve 
got the row-boat somewhere now.” 

“ We only borrow the ship,” said the girl, 
earnestly. “ And it was so bad a one that my 
father and Emilio could not manage it. It 
strike on a rock and we come near to sink. 
Could we take the big bear into the little boat ?” 
Anita loosed her hold of the baby’s skirts to 
spread out her lean, little brown hands dramat- 
ically. “ You have your great ship back again, 
now give us back our bear !” 

The whole procession, a somewhat sleepy 
and tired one, now had stopped to look and 
listen. A yellow streak of dawn was beginning 
to put out the lanterns, and it fell full upon the 
girl, a grotesque figure in tattered finery and 
with great hoops of gold dangling from her ears. 

“ Emilio will have the bear !” she cried shrilly, 
angered by the boy’s silence. “You cannot 
keep him from Emilio ! He is worth much 
money, that bear ! He is the great — ” 

The baby raised a sharp cry. As long as he 
lives Manuel will suspect that Gustavus gave it 
a little pinch ; but it is doubtful whether Gus- 
tavus was either so hard-hearted or so quick- 
witted. 


174 


A CAPE COD BOY 


The girl snatched the baby angrily from 
Manuel. 

“ You hurt the baby ! And it is you who have 
hurt the bear, in the winter, so that he may 
never perform again. And there is not in the 
wide world such a performing bear. There are 
many indeed that dance, but he is the great — ” 

“ I’ve got a warrant for the arrest of that 
gal!” It was Jude Atwood, the storekeeper, 
who shouted, as he came, hurrying across lots 
into the Striped Marsh road. “ Land ! I knew 
’twas a gal or boy that broke into my store, 
for there wasn’t anything stole but sweet stuff — 
canned peaches and jhums and pails of rasp- 
berry jam, and the glass jars full of candy ! And 
all the little sweet crackers ! Money in the 
drawer and not a cent of it touched ! Was 
that like anybody in the world but a gal ?” 

The girl burst into a sobbing wail, as the 
sheriff, following the storekeeper, laid his hand 
upon her shoulder. 

“I have touched nothing !” she cried shrilly. 
“ How could I break into store — a girl like me, 
and with the baby ?” 

Cap’n ’Siah wiped his head distressfully. 

“ Seems a terrible pity, now — a little gal like 


THE BUILDING BOOM AND THE BEAR 175 


that! I expect you've got proof, Jude At- 
wood !” 

“Proof! Ain't the stairs in the meetin’- 
house covered with my tin cans and cracker 
crumbs?" cried Jude Atwood. “And who in 
nater would take the sweet stuff and leave the 
money, without it was a gal ?" 

Manuel and Gustavus exchanged uneasy 
glances. They were acquainted with a tooth for 
sweet stuff that did not belong to a girl ! 

Gustavus scowled anxiously at Manuel. He 
thought it would be just like him to tell — 
for a girl's sake. While it was Gustavus’s 
theory that since the bear would probably be 
shot, Jude Atwood being a hard man, while 
the girl would go scot free — as in his ex- 
perience girls always did after they had cried a 
while — it was quite unnecessary to say anything 
about the bear. 

Moreover, the girl claimed that the bear was 
hers. In that case it was her business, not his 
or Manuel's, if he broke into a store ! 

And where was the bear ? Perhaps already in 
the possession of Emilio. Perhaps they had 
planned to carry him off in the mysterious vessel 
that had been seen lurking about the coast. 


176 


A CAPE COD BOY 


Gustavus’s small mind was in a ferment, but 
he felt that it was a logical mind, and that he 
must bring it to bear upon Manuel’s softness 
where girls were concerned. 

He gave Manuel’s arm a little jerk. “ When 
she’s in jail we can find the bear and carry him 
off in the Delight !” he whispered. “ The girl 
that’s making trouble hardly ever gets into 
jail. We’re awful lucky !” 

Manuel’s wrinkle of responsibility smoothed 
itself out suddenly. 

“ She is invite to breakfast !” he cried. “ If 
she have break into store still she must have 
breakfast ! And the sheriff he is invite to 
breakfast, too ; is it not, Caddy? and the store- 
keeper ! So then they talk over how things are 
and find more proof ; or perhaps ” — the glow 
faded out of Manuel’s face — “ or perhaps find 
that some other one have do the wicked deed.” 

Caddy seconded Manuel’s invitation, and it 
was accepted the more readily because a convey- 
ance must be found to take the girl to Tooraloo, 
and conveyances were scarce in Scauset, where 
there was little but marsh hay upon which to 
feed a horse. Moreover, they were not people 
who did things in haste. And Tooraloo would 


THE BUILDING BOOM AND THE BEAR 177 

be sufficiently startled by having a girl brought 
to its jail, even if it did not happen before 
breakfast time ! Caddy was full of pity for the 
girl, and firmly believed that she told the truth 
when she declared that the tin cans and the 
crackers found upon the church stairs had not 
come out of Jude Atwood’s store. Of course, 
said Caddy, there were many cans and many 
crackers of the same brand ; every grocery store 
in that region kept the same. How did Jude 
Atwood know that they were his cans and 
crackers ? 

So there was nothing that Caddy could do 
except to delay that breakfast and so keep a girl 
and a baby from jail as long as possible — and 
hope and pray, while she set the tea kettle to 
boiling, that the real thief might be found. 
When Gustavus Nickerson reminded her that 
this was “ the bear girl ” and had stolen the 
Delight, Caddy said, “ No, no ! not the girl. 
She had to follow the others. A girl who would 
be so good to her poor little baby sister that her 
mother had left to her care when she was dying, 
would never, never steal.” 

So Caddy would not have bacon and eggs for 
breakfast, because they could be quickly cooked. 


12 


178 


A CAPE COD BOY 


She had to have a chicken killed, and then she 
made popovers. And the town fathers’ mouths 
watered, and Cap’n Seba Oakes said he guessed 
he hadn’t better go home for fear a whole gang 
of Spanish spies might come ashore there to 
the Point, now they had ketched the gal, — for 
Caddy’s fried chicken and popovers were famous. 
When it was decided to go over to the store and 
examine the premises again, while breakfast was 
being cooked, Caddy insisted that Manuel should 
go with the town fathers. 

“ You are so quick and sharp, Manny !” she 
said. “ You will show them that it could not 
have been a girl.” 

Manuel went a little reluctantly ; he and 
Gustavus were just setting out in search of the 
bear, which was certainly important business. 

Footprints in Scauset sand are not easily 
traced, and there was no sign to show which 
way the bear had gone. Gustavus had not the 
courage to go towards the store with the others 
lest he should discover some sign that the bear 
was the store-breaker. He ran after Manuel 
and uttered a hoarse caution in his ear. 

“ You stick to it that ’twas the girl that broke 
in, anyhow, won’t you Manuel ?” 


THE BUILDING BOOM AND THE BEAR 179 


He did shrink back abashed at the look that 
Manuel turned upon him. 

“ A man must be honest and say truth ; that 
come first, ” said Manuel. 

A man ! But two boys who were having 
such an awful time with a bear ! That was dif- 
ferent, thought Gustavus. 

“ They have done as bad and worse to us/’ he 
whimpered ; but Manuel went along without a 
word, and Gustavus felt unhappy, certain that 
he would do nothing to hinder the bear from 
being found out if he were guilty. 

So, after a moment’s hesitation, Gustavus fol- 
lowed stoutly on to the store. He must protect 
his own interests since he had no friend to do it 
for him ! 

A shutter had been partly torn off and half a 
window smashed in the back part of the store. 
Gustavus’s small, sharp eyes espied a long piece 
of red string among the bits of broken glass — a 
piece of red tape of the kind that is bound 
around bales of cotton cloth. Caddy had tied such 
a piece around the poultice on the bear’s leg! 

Gustavus thrust the tell-tale string into his 
pocket unobserved. 

“ Anybody must be crazy to think a bear 


180 


A CAPE COD BOY 


could break open a window like that !” he said 
gruffly to Manuel. “ A lame bear, too !” 

Manuel nodded assentingly. The bear had 
been able to carry off Caddy’s preserves to a 
hollow tree in the woods, but that was a feat of 
agility rather than of strength. 

“ There ain’t nothin to prove who ’twas, any- 
how,” said Jude Atwood, dejectedly. “And I 
shan’t never get any pay for my goods.” 

And the string in little Gustavus’s pocket 
burned as if it were red-hot. If Manuel should 
see it and know that their bear was the thief, he 
would think that they ought to pay for the 
stolen property ; yes, sir, if it took all summer 
to earn the money ! 

He thrust the string deep down into his 
trousers pockets, but he whistled all the way 
back to the Point, just as he did when he went 
by the cemetery at night. And he said he 
didn’t want any fried chicken and pop- 
overs ; he would go and look for the bear. In 
truth he did not want to see that girl carried off 
to the Tooraloo jail, for, with all his short- 
comings little Gustavus had a conscience ; those 
troublesome things grow on the Cape. You 
would have known that they did if you could 


the building boom and the bear 181 


have seen the way in which the town fathers de- 
liberated over the proposal that Caddy made to 
them, after she had mellowed their hearts with 
her fried chicken and popovers. She proposed 
that the girl and the baby should be allowed to 
stay with her for a few days, until she had 
clothed them comfortably. Some of her out- 
grown clothes could he made to fit the girl, and 
it took so little for a baby ! They were so des- 
titute, Caddy said, that it would be really a dis- 
grace to Sea use t to let them go in such a condi- 
tion out of her borders. And after Jude At- 
wood had reckoned up, three times, his losses in 
cans and crackers and candy, and made them 
less each time, and they had argued the matter 
and got the minister to pray over it, they 
decided that the girl might stay for a week 
with Caddy. 

It was easy to see, from the first, that the con- 
ference would come to this conclusion, and the 
string in Gustavus’s pocket grew so much less 
uncomfortable that he went off to the woods to 
look for the bear. 

And Manuel, when he saw that Caddy no 
longer needed his support, went to see Cyrus 
Deuce about some lumber. After all, a bear 


182 


A CAPE COE BOY 


was a trifle, lie thought, compared to the “ build- 
ing boom ” that was coming to Scauset. 

The string was more comfortable in Gus- 
tavus’s pocket, but when he reached that hollow 
pine tree in the woods there was the bear stand- 
ing upright beside it, and in his mouth he held, 
like a pipe, a stick of Jude Atwood’s pink cin- 
namon candy ! It was thus that the great 
Mezul, in the days of his triumphs, had been 
accustomed to receive the offerings of the 
children. 

And then conscience again had Gustavus in 
its grasp ; for it seemed very evident who had 
robbed the store. 

Meanwhile, from the pile of lumber beside 
the store, a boy’s dark head had been, from 
time to time, thrust cautiously out for purposes 
of observation. The boy was large, and the 
space into which he had crawled was small, and 
there were reasons why he was very impatient 
to get out and away, but it was a long time be- 
fore he could be sure that there was no one in 
sight. 

The rakish-looking craft that Cap’n Seba 
Oakes had taken for a Spanish vessel was very 
near the shore this morning, and a row-boat 


THE BUILDING BOOM AND THE BEAK 183 


had put out from it for the little cove beyond 
the Striped Marsh. 

When the boy at length emerged from his 
concealment, he ran towards the cove as fast as 
he could go. 

A man who had landed from the row-boat 
was impatiently walking up and down the 
beach. 

“ Well, where is the bear ?” he demanded. 

“ I could not bring him before all the 
people,” stammered the boy. “ They are afraid 
of a bear ! Besides, he is still lame a little, and 
there was not time. But I bring him to you 
when you stop at Kingstown to-morrow.” 

“ If he is such a bear as you say, we may 
want to buy him, ,, said the man. “But how 
did you come by him ? That’s what the boss 
wants to know.” 

The boy’s dark face flushed as the man looked 
him over from head to foot. But it might have 
been that he blushed only for his rags and 
dirt. 

“ I come by him honest and I sell him cheap,” 
he said, doggedly. 

The appointment was finally agreed to. 

“At eleven o’clock you bring him to the long 


184 


A CAPE COB BOY 


pier,” the man said. “ And look sharper than 
you did to-day, for we can’t wait !” 

And then the man rowed back again to the 
jaunty vessel, which was, in reality, a yacht 
with its name, La Gitana, plainly painted at its 
bow — the pleasure yacht of the proprietor of 
the Royal Trans-Atlantic Exhibition. The 
boy retreated hastily to the woods where he 
had left the bear. 

He had meant to take him to the church 
where his sister was, when, lurking around 
Cap’n ’Siali’s house in the night, he had, by 
great good fortune, found him descending from 
the wood-slied window. The bell-ringing that 
had aroused the whole town had prevented that 
and he had taken the bear to the woods and 
tied him by a stout rope to a tree. 

It was not a very secure place but there 
were reasons why he must hide and it was 
the best he could do. Now the rope was 
there but the bear was gone. The noose re- 
mained unbroken ; it looked as if the bear 
had slipped out of it by himself. The boy 
ran about frantically in the woods, whistling 
softly. Then, suddenly, far out in the open 
road, he caught sight of a pair of sturdy 


THE BUILDING BOOM AND THE BEAR 185 


pedestrians, Gustavus and the bear, the boy’s 
arm about the bear’s neck. 

Emilio’s impulse was to rush out and claim 
the bear, but there were reasons, many and im- 
perative, why he should restrain it. He said to 
himself, “ But I will have him yet ! At 
eleven o’clock to-morrow he shall be in Kings- 
town, and the circus man will buy him ! We 
shall have money and go far away, and nobody 
shall ever find us out ! It is Anita who will 
help me to get the bear.” 

For from his hiding place Emilio had dis- 
covered, by the talk of the town fathers, that 
Anita was at Cap’n ’Siali Doane’s house, where 
the bear was kept. “ Anita has wit only in her 
heels, but she shall help !” 

Gustavus got the bear back into the wood- 
shed chamber; he was so docile and went so 
readily that one would not have believed that 
he would ever risk breaking his neck to get out. 
But Gustavus, feeling sure that he would do 
that when night came, waited for Manuel to 
come home that they might together plan some 
way to fasten him securely. 

He had to wait a long time, for when Manuel 
had reached the house that Cyrus Dence was 


186 


A CAPE COD BOY 


building, Asher Baker had appeared from his 
cranberry bog and had beckoned to him. 

Cyrus Deuce’s house was being built upon 
land that he had bought of Cap’n ’Siah — the 
very land where the whale had come ashore and 
been exhibited, and it adjoined Asher Baker’s 
land. 

Asher was out upon his land now, every day, 
measuring, until every one thought that he had 
surely become insane. 

“ I want to build me a workshop,” he said to 
Manuel. “ My son James Henry’s wife says 
we shall all be sot afire with my sittin’ up 
nights inventin’ things! I’ve got something in 
my head, now, that’s goin’ to make a fortune 
certain, and I’ve got to have a little place of my 
own to work it out in. If you’ll let me have 
lumber enough to build it I’ll give you a share 
of my patent when I get it, and make your 
fortune, too!” 

Manuel looked at the pitifully-eager, worn, 
old face, and the trembling, twitching figure, 
and flung away all prudence, all thought of 
what Scauset — even of what Cap’ll ’Siah would 
say. 

“ I bring you lumber and I help you build 


THE BUILDING BOOM AND THE BEAR 187 


the little shop !” he said. And when a half- 
hour afterwards, as he was talking with Cyrus 
Dence, Asher Baker brought to him a carefully 
drawn-up paper, conveying to him a share in 
the prospective patent of an improved knitting 
machine, he suppresed a smile — to save the old 
man’s feelings — and put the paper into his 
pocket. 

Manuel and Cyrus Dence proposed to walk 
together to Kingstown the next morning. 
Manuel wished to see the builder of the new 
Scauset town hall to find out how much lumber 
would be needed, and Cyrus Dence wished to 
see the same builder to suggest some changes in 
his house. 

The Delight was going to Boston for lumber 
within a day or two. Gustavus must really 
take care of that bear himself! Moreover, there 
was a question whether those Portuguese people 
had not a right to claim it still — -even although 
they had run away with the Delight, abandoned 
the bear, and were still in possession of or had 
sold his row-boat. 

Gustavus had made a great many figures to 
show that the damages to the Delight and the 
loss of the row-boat gave Manuel a legal claim 


188 


A CAPJ2 COD BOY 


to tne bear, to say nothing of the fact that it 
ought to belong to him (Gustavus), because he 
had found it in the woods. And just now pos- 
session — the nine points of the law — was in 
Gustavus’s favor, and he meant that it should 
remain so. Manuel helped him to make the 
wood-shed chamber window secure ; at least, 
those people should openly claim the bear, not 
steal him away ; and then the two boys resolved 
to watch there, all night, and positively not to 
sleep a wink. 

Towards nightfall Anita’s spirits had seemed 
to come up with a bound. It was after Caddy 
had seen her speak, for a moment, to a boy, 
over the stone wall of the garden — a tramp 
who had asked her the way, she said ; and if 
Caddy had her suspicions she said nothing, for 
people shook their heads at her for befriending 
the girl. 

Anita wanted to sing for them. She sang 
an Italian folk-song with the aid of a tam- 
bourine, improvised from little Israel’s drum, 
and the tea-bell. And how she sang ! Cap’n 
Seba Oakes and Cap’n Orrin Saunders had 
happened in, and they said she “ ’peared to be 
bewitched.” Caddy sent for Grandsir and 


THE BUILDING BOOM AND THE BEAR 189 


Grandma Fretas, and Grandma told how strong 
her voice had been once on a time. 

Then Anita sang, in a soft, sweet, lisping 
voice, old Portuguese songs, and Grandsir and 
Grandma Fretas both wept, and even Cap’n 
Orrin Saunders, who was a very unsentimental 
Selectman, and didn’t understand Portuguese, 
had to use his bandana handkerchief. And 
Manuel and Gustavus — well, Anita had not 
sung like this up at Putasket ! They had 
never heard anything like it and were quite car- 
ried away. As Caddy said, it was “ a perfectly 
beautiful evening but when they went up to 
the wood-shed chamber the bear was gone! 
They had not thought it necessary to keep 
watch in the evening; it had been late in the 
night when he got out before, and Anita’s en- 
tertainment had been so lively and noisy that 
they had heard not a sound when their heavily- 
barricaded window was broken open. 

They searched half the night for the bear, 
and Gustavus was angry because Manuel would 
keep his engagement to go to Kingstown with 
the schoolmaster, instead of continuing the 
search. 

“ Little Gustavus is my heart’s friend, but I 


190 


A CAPE COD BOY 


have not time to play, always, tlie game of find 
and lose the bear,” he said, sadly. 

Gustavus, with a sore heart, walked all the 
way to Tooraloo, through the woods, searching. 
But, as often happens, the one who was not 
searching found. 

When they were half way to Kingstown, 
Manuel and Cyrus .Derice saw the Tooraloo 
baker’s wagon turning from a side road into 
the sandy highway, a few rods in front of them. 

Joel Brewster, aged ten, was driving the 
wagon. Suddenly, from a clump of hushes 
beside the road, appeared a huge bear. Now, 
bears were quite foreign to little Joel’s experi- 
ence and his tow hair fairly stood up with 
fright. He attempted to whip up his horse, 
but the beast was old, the wagon not light, and 
the road deep with sand ; he had not seen the 
bear and he declined to increase his speed. 

Then little Joel — it 1 is sad to report it of a 
Tooraloo boy — deserted his wagon and took to 
the woods. 

Emilio cautiously followed the bear from the 
shelter of the bushes; he was taking Mezul in 
by-paths, so far as was possible, to Kingstown. 

A baker’s wagon laden with cakes and pies ! 


THE BUILDING BOOM AND THE BEAR 191 


This was good fortune to Emilio who had no 
scruples about helping himself to another’s, 
property. He mounted the front of the wagon 
without even stopping to look back at the 
travelers on the highway. 

He filled the baker’s basket with cakes, and 
was tossing some out to the bear, when the 
horse, turning his head suddenly, caught sight 
of the great beast, who had raised himself upon 
his hind legs and was waving his paws by way 
of thanks for the cakes. 

A Tooraloo horse had not the courage to 
encounter a bear, any more than a Tooraloo 
small boy ! He made a sudden plunge forward, 
and Emilio pitched out in front in such a 
.position that the horse’s flying hoof hit him in 
the head and both wagon-wheels passed over 
his body. 

As Cyrus Dence and Manuel raised him 
carefully in their arms the boy opened his eyes 
and groaned ; he was evidently badly hurt. 

The bear, his great mouth full of cake, stood 
upright and begged with his paws. 

“ It is the bear boy ! We must take him to 
Scauset — someway ! It is Caddy who will nurse 
him, as she do every one,” said Manuel. He 


192 


A CAPE COD BOY 


cast one wistful glance towards Kingstown, and 
then added slowly, using one of the large words 
that he was learning in his intimacy with the 
schoolmaster : “ The building boom of Scauset, 
I fear, it will be complicate by bear !” 


CHAPTER XI 


SOME INFORMATION ABOUT MEZUL 

It was almost Christinas. Scauset had al- 
ways seemed to be left out of Christmas; no 
one had ever had a Christmas party there, so 
Caddy was going to change the order of things, 
and have one. 

Cap’n ’Siah was so irritated, at first, that he 
allowed himself to be sarcastic, a very unusual 
thing. 

Then Caddy explained that she had just 
hinted the matter to Cap’n Orrin Saunders, and 
he had immediately declared that the Scauset 
Christmas party should be the house-warming 
of the new hotel ! And every one was to help 
to decorate the hotel, and everyone was to carry 
a basket of goodies, and the Christmas tree was 
to be the biggest one ever seen on the Cape ! 

Manuel was burdened with a heavy care. 
Perhaps he had been foolish, as Cap’n ’Siah 


194 


A CAPE COD BOY 


thought, to try to help Asher Baker with his 
invention. Asher had been trying to invent 
something ever since he was a young man, and 
nothing had ever succeeded. This time it had 
been an improved knitter, to be used in a stock- 
ing factory. Manuel had not only furnished 
lumber and helped to build a work-shop for 
Asher, but he had lent him money to help in 
the work. Now the manager of the Dulwich 
stocking factory, which was no longer in opera- 
tion, who was an old friend of Asher Baker, 
had been shown the invention, and had pro- 
nounced it utterly impracticable and useless. 

The shock of disappointment had caused 
Asher Baker to take to his bed, and he was now 
threatened with brain fever. And his son James 
Henry’s wife sharply upbraided Manuel, even 
in the public street, for ruining her father-in- 
law by encouraging and helping him ! 

Cap’n Seba Oakes said that, for his part, he 
had always known that that audacious little 
Portergee would yet be the ruin of Scauset. 

Gustavus Nickerson had his anxieties, too, 
and there is no doubt that Manuel was a little 
trying to his “ heart’s friend ” in those days, for 
he was so absorbed in the building boom and 


SOME INFORMATION ABOUT MEZUL 195 


the trouble about Asher Baker that bad grown 
out of it, that be didn’t seem to think that 
a bear was of any account, even the great 
Mezul. 

He wouldn’t attach the bear, as Gustavus 
wanted him to do, to pay for the damages to the 
Delight and for his row-boat, and Gustavus ex- 
pected that the Selectmen would do it, to reim- 
burse the town if it had to pay the board of the 
tramps. 

But the town fathers didn’t seem to think 
that a bear was of any account. They had not 
yet discovered that he was the great Mezul and 
worth five thousand dollars. There had been 
interruptions that seemed providential every 
time that important secret had been upon the 
point of popping out. 

And Gustavus had taken Manuel’s advice and 
was “ strengthening his mind ” and trying to 
acquire the great and invaluable art of holding 
his tongue. 

There was no game of “ find and lose the 
bear ” now. He was kept safe in the wood-shed 
chamber, and Gustavus encouraged Scauset’s 
fear that made it give him the whole of the road 
when he took Mezul out for an airing. 


196 


A CAPE COD BOY 


Emilio was silent and surly as lie began to re- 
cover, and never mentioned the bear ; and Anita 
said that she was heart-sick of tramping with 
him, and wished she had a little place to stay in 
and be “ home girl ” instead of street singer 
and bear woman, and that made Caddy cry. You 
see Caddy was soft-hearted and seemed to forget 
that those people had stolen the Delight and be- 
haved very meanly about the bear. 

When, in the fall, Emilio had recovered and 
the subject of having them arrested had been 
again agitated, Gustavus had felt that it was 
time for a little diplomacy on his part. That 
red string that he had found in the store, after 
it was entered oy thieves, was still in his trousers 
pocket. It was worn and frayed now. He 
carefully changed it to the pocket of his Sun- 
day trousers every Saturday night, and he 
always hid his trousers at night. His sister 
Viola was the kind of a girl who would take a 
boy’s trousers on pretence of wishing to mend 
them, and find out what there was in the 
pockets. 

Gustavus hung around the house at the Point 
until one day he found Anita alone, except for 
the baby. She was sitting on the flat stone by 



THE QIRL SNATCHED AT THE STRING 





• 











« 









' 



















































* 





































SOME INFORMATION ABOUT MEZUL 197 


the gate, under the withering hollyhocks, 
when Gustavus approached her. 

Anita smiled at him. She was becoming 
friendly in her manner and Gustavus had shown 
appreciation of her singing. 

“ Toraloo jail is a fearful place,” remarked 
Gustavus, leaning upon the fence, in an easy, 
conversational attitude. “ There’s mice there — 
and rats.” The color fled from Anita’s dark- 
skinned face and her eyes dilated. “Orfle 
cold in the winter, too ; I expect the baby would 
die there ! Look at here now !” Gustavus’ 
tone changed suddenly to one of confidential 
persuasion. “ If you’ll agree to go away and 
leave the bear — why, I’m the only one that can 
prove who broke into the store ! And if I do 
think an orfle lot of the bear I’ll risk his 
life—” 

Gustavus drew slowly from his pocket the 
long red string that he had found among the 
bits of broken glass in the store, the string that, 
as he thought, Caddy had tied around the poul- 
tice on the bear’s leg. 

The girl snatched fiercely at the string — but 
Gustavus held on. 

Then she burst into a storm of angry tears. 


198 


A CAPE COP BOY 


“ You are a bad, wicked boy to say you found 
it in the store. May not a poor girl lose her 
hair string anywhere ? Everyone turn against 
poor Portuguese, every one but the good Caddy 
and — and Manuel that is our countryman and 
has not the bad heart like you !” 

Her liair-string ! It seemed that the red tape 
that came on cotton cloth was used for different 
purposes and it was not, after all the bear that 
had been the burglar. Gustavus’s feelings were 
divided between relief at the bear’s safety and 
chagrin at the failure of his diplomacy. 

The trouble that his conscience had given him 
about that string, bidding him tell of the bear 
and keep those j)eople from going to jail, had 
been all unnecessary ! He did not care how 
soon they went to jail now ! — he was not going 
to be soft-hearted like Caddy and Manuel — 
Manuel who was but a false friend and would 
not attach the bear. Gustavus walked quickly 
away from Anita’s accusations and tears ; even 
Gustavus did not like to see a girl cry ; but he 
thrust the red string deeper into his pocket. It 
was different proof from what he had thought 
it, but quite as strong. 

It happened a few days after this little inter- 


SOME INFORMATION ABOUT MEZUL 199 


view with Anita that Gustavus carried his 
brother Ludovico’s dinner to the summer hotel 
that Cap’n Orrin Saunders was building. Lu- 
dovico was lame but he had a little inside job. 
Almost everybody in Scauset had a job, now, 
and went about with a busy and bustling 
air. 

On the steps beside one of the workmen’s 
dinner pails he found a copy of the “Barnsteeple 
Patriot,” and sat down to read it. Since Gus- 
tavus’s little journey into the world he thought 
more about what was going on outside of Scauset 
than he had done before. “ Performing Ani- 
mals,” was the heading that first caught his eye 
and promised something more interesting to him 
than any news could be. The article began with 
an account of elephants that walked the tight- 
rope and seals that played the hand-organ, 
giving the names of noted performers. Presently 
Gustavus’s freckled face was aflame and his 
pulses beating like trip-hammers. “ The bear 
has always been a difficult animal to train, and 
one or two tricks are, generally speaking, the 
extent of a bear’s accomplishments,” he read. 
“A Russian bear, known as the great Mezul, 
at one time the pet of a Turkish pasha, had, 


200 


A CAPE COD BOY 


however, many and varied accomplishments; 
he could shoot at a mark with great skill, could 
handle the dishes as a waiter at a dinner party 
with extraordinary deftness ” (Caddy’s pre- 
serves! murmured Gustavus, breathlessly), 
“ and if given a fiddle would draw the bow 
across the strings and march to his own accom- 
paniment. He is said to have shown real affec- 
tion for his master and his keepers, although 
sometimes, as is almost always the case with a 
tamed bear, the natural ferocity of the wild 
beast would break out.” 

Gustavus read that clause doubtfully ; it 
didn’t seem as if that could mean Mezul. 

“Mezul was stolen from a circus called the 
Royal Trans-Atlantic Exhibition, in London, 
about three years ago, by a man who had been 
his keeper. A reward of a thousand dollars was 
offered for his return, but he has never been 
found.” 

The workman found a corner torn off his 
paper, and Ludovico found his dinner but no 
Gustavus; he only caught a glimpse of the boy’s 
sturdy figure running across the fields to the 
new town hall, where Manuel was delivering 
lumber to-day. 


SOME INFORMATION ABOUT MEZUL 20l 


But, as he ran, Gustavus reflected. Manuel had 
now become so entirely a business man as to be 
capable of thinking that a thousand dollars was 
better than a bear ; while Gustavus only wished 
to prove that the bear did not belong to those 
people, so that he might claim it. 

Now, of course, this point of view cannot be 
defended on the score of morals ; but wait ! — 
little Gustavus’s conscience would always get in 
its work, if you gave it time. 

On second thought, he would not show that 
scrap of paper to Manuel ; this was a world in 
which a fellow would better attend to his own 
business. And this was business that required 
more diplomacy ! 

Other people in Scauset would read that 
article, but no one who knew that this bear was 
the great Mezul. 

But time went by and Gustavus, although he 
had kept his secret, had not been able to think 
of any stroke of diplomacy that promised him 
possession of the bear. 

He had composed several letters to the Boyal 
Trans-Atlantic Exhibition, London, and torn 
them to pieces. He had, in imagination, con- 
fronted Emilio with the accusation of having 


202 


A CAPE COB BOY 


stolen the hear from the long-named show and 
seen Emilio and Anita run away in terror and 
leave the bear behind. But he knew that in 
reality they were not likely to run away. Emilio 
was still very lame and the baby ill ; arrest 
seemed to have less terror for them than facing 
the world. 

Caddy thought Manuel unkind that he would 
take so little interest in the Christmas prepara- 
tions, and when, less than a week before Christ- 
mas, he started off to New York, with quite in- 
definite explanations as to his reasons and the 
length of his stay, she almost regretted that the 
building boom had ever come to Scauset. 

Queer things happened in that Christmas 
week. No sooner had Manuel gone than 
Emilio, taking advantage of his absence, as 
people supposed, slipjDed away with the bear ! 
And the next news was that Gustavus Nicker- 
son had also disappeared — probably in pursuit 
of the bear. 

His sister Viola said she had always known 
that Gustavus’s silliness about the show busi- 
ness would be his ruin. 

Manuel went directly to New York, and 
almost all the luggage that he carried was the 


SOME INFORMATION ABOUT MEZUL 203 


model of Asher Baker’s improved knitting 
machine, in Cap’n ’Siah’s old carpet hag. 

The owner of the yacht on which he had 
been sailing master was a patent lawyer in New 
York. Manuel had so strong a belief that there 
was more that was novel and valuable in Asher 
Baker’s invention than the manager had seen, 
that he had determined to make all the effort 
he could to secure a patent upon it. 

He had not told Cap’n ’Siali anything more 
than he had told Caddy — that it was business ; 
their faith in him was not yet equal to such a 
strain as that I 

Manuel received a heart-warming welcome 
from the owner of the yacht. There had been 
a happening during that cruise of the Petrel 
which had endeared him to the lawyer and his 
family — but that would be a whole story in 
itself. 

He was invited to dinner in a very fine man- 
sion, and if you think he did not carry himself 
in a way to do credit to Scauset, it is because 
you do not know how fine a little Portergee’s 
manner’s may be — especially with a graft of the 
the simple refinement of Caddy’s training. 

Better even than the kindly reception and 


204 


A CAPE COD BOY 


the social attention was the verdict of an expert, 
employed by the patent lawyer, upon poor 
Asher Baker’s invention. It was of value, pos- 
sibly of great value, and the patent would be 
secured with as little delay as possible. 

“ I telegraph him to James Henry’s wife — 
no, I have the joy to tell the poor Asher Baker 
myself!” said Manuel to himself, and made 
preparations to return hastily to Scauset, after 
being a little extravagant in buying gifts for 
the Scauset Christmas tree. 

But before he set out upon his return there 
came a telegram from Cyrus Dence, who, alone, 
knew where he was going. 

“ Gustavus gone ; probably in pursuit of 
Emilio and bear.” 

Manuel was not surprised that Emilio had 
gone with the bear ; he had expected that, and 
sometimes thought it would be the easiest solu- 
tion of the difficulty. But it never had occurred 
to him that Gustavus would go in pursuit, and, 
for a moment, he inwardly called his heart’s 
friend a little idiot, adding, directly after, with a 
thrill of sympathy : “ But the heart of little 
Gustavus he have set it upon the bear.” 


SOME INFORMATION ABOUT MEZUL 205 


In what direction would Emilio be likely to 
go with the bear, and where should he look for 
little Gustavus? 

It was while he was questioning that his eye 
was caught by a poster upon a wall. “ The 
Royal Trans- Atlantic Exhibition ; Greatest 
Show in the World. Marvelous Performances 
of Trained Animals.” 

Now, Manuel had not seen that article about 
performing animals in the “ Barnsteeple Pa- 
triot,” nor had he ever heard of this show, but 
it immediately occurred to him that Emilio 
would be likely to try to sell the bear, since, 
without Anita, he could not hope to make a 
street success with him ; and, moreover, he had 
always expressed a dislike for him, and ever 
since he was convalescent had not spent as many 
minutes in his society in the wood-shed cham- 
ber as Gustavus had spent hours. 

That show had been advertised all about the 
country. Manuel remembered to have seen its 
flaming signs in Kingstown, although it con- 
descended to nothing but large cities, and had 
never been nearer the Cape than Boston. What 
more likely than that Emilio had brought the 
bear to New York? It was probable that he 


206 


A CAPE COD BOY 


could obtain from some of bis Kingstown coun- 
trymen funds to help him on the way. 

It was the last performance of this great show 
that was advertised upon the placard. Manuel 
hurried, as fast as he could, to the huge build- 
ing where it was given. 

In his haste he had not observed the date. 
The performances were all over, the properties 
were being carted away, and the great temporary 
building was being taken down. But some of 
the “ bosses ” of the different departments were 
still there, and around one of them was gathered 
a throng of workmen, listening to the shrill and 
excited exjffanation of a boy. 

It was Emilio’s voice that came to Manuel’s 
ears, as he stood upon the outskirts of the 
crowd ; it was Emilio who was wildly shouting 
and gesticulating ! 

“ I would bring you the bear that day, last 
summer, in Kingstown, but I got hurt. Now I 
have just found out that the show is here, and I 
get here as fast as I could, though my head 
hurt me, and I am still lame. And such a bear 
is a great bargain for five hundred dollars ; 
never will you find such bear again !” 

“ But where is he ?” demanded the “ boss.” 


SOME INFORMATION ABOUT MEZUL 207 


“ You don’t expect us to buy a bear that we 
haven’t seen? ’Twas just the same there at the 
Cape, last summer ; you talked about your won- 
derful bear, but we could not see him. We’re 
looking for a bear all right, but we don’t want 
any common one.” 

“ It is infamous rascal that hinder me !” 
cried Emilio — “ now, when I bring him through 
the street to show you ! He live down there in 
the sand, and he make friends with the bear and 
he follow me when I bring him here to New 
York ! In the street we meet, and he have ways 
to draw the bear to him. The bear turn upon 
me ! The bear come out sometimes, no matter 
how gentle. He want to go with the boy, the 
infamous rascal that have bewitch him, and he 
turn upon me so and the crowd is so great that 
I have to carry him back to the house of my 
countrymen, where I lodge. But I will bring 
him to you — to the steamer to-morrow. There 
was great crowd in street, and police come, and 
I think the infamous rascal — Gustavus, he call 
himself — is now in jail and will hinder no more. 
Before the steamer sail I bring you the bear!” 

“ Well, bring him — but remember we know 
a bear that is worth having when we see him ! 


208 


A CAPE COB BOY 


And see here ! how did you come by him ? We 
want to know that, too.” 

But Emilio had departed, contented with the 
permission to bring the bear to the steamer. 

Manuel drew a long sigh and proceeded to 
the rescue of his heart’s friend. 

The game of “ find the hear and lose him ” 
seemed likely to begin again, and it was much 
more difficult and exciting in New York than 
in Scauset. 

And to-morrow was the day before Christ- 
mas ! He had planned to start for home that 
night and be at home in time for the Scauset 
Christmas party. 

He found a policeman to show him the way 
to the street that Emilio had mentioned, but 
when he reached it there was no sign of a crowd 
or of Gustavus. He wandered up and down for 
hours, seeking ; but small sensations are soon 
over in a city street ; no one knew which way 
the boy went who had quarreled with another 
boy about a hear. 

But could he go home and leave his heart’s 
friend alone in New York ? 

When he reached his lodging house he found 
there a note from the lawyer, saying that he 


SOME INFORMATION ABOUT MEZUL 209 

wished to see him again the next forenoon. So 
he would not have gone home in any case ; but 
for all the forenoon he could not go to the 
rescue of Gustavus. 

When his business was finished he sought 
that street again, and again he looked in vain 
for a clew to Gustav us’s whereabouts. Suddenly 
it occurred to him that Gustavus might keep 
on Emilio’s track and follow him to the steamer. 

It took some time to find out where the 
steamer was lying upon which the circus was to 
sail, but he reached the wharf at last. 

There was a scene of great confusion ; a 
crowd had gathered to witness the embarka- 
tion. An excited urchin explained to Manuel 
how the little elephants had gone over the 
plank, holding on to each other’s tails, and that 
that was the biggest elephant of all that was 
just being swung on board, by means of a der- 
rick, in a huge, red cage. 

The decks of the steamer were covered with 
golden chariots and fairy floats, cages, and 
wardrobe wagons, and the great hippopotamus, 
and the cages of polar bears and sea-lions. 

There was no chance of finding Gustavus 
here, thought Manuel, too anxious about his 


14 


210 


A CAPE COD BOY 


heart’s friend to have any eye for the wonders 
he saw, when, suddenly, Emilio’s shrill voice 
struck again upon his ear. He was on board 
the steamer explaining why he was late. He 
had feared the crowd in the streets, the infamous 
rascal of whom he had told them had dogged 
his steps ; he had enticed the bear and he had 
claimed protection from him in vain. 

The “infamous rascal,” a wayworn, unkempt 
figure, had, for a moment, the impatient boss’s 
ear, as he shouted from the pier, “ It’s no won- 
der he’s afraid!” he cried, shrilly; “for he stole 
the bear from this very circus ! He’s Mezul — the 
great Mezul ! He’s worth five thousand dollars. 
You advertised, yourselves, to pay a thousand 
dollars to any one that would bring him back ! 
Yes, sir ! he’s the great Mezul — ” 

“ Where’s the bear, anyhow ?” called the boss. 
But Emilio had run across the plank and slipped 
away in the crowd. “ It may be true — that 
looked like Michael Cereda’s boy Emilio, and 
we knew that Michael stole the bear. But, look 
here, sonny ! This steamer is going to sail ! 
We’ve got the bear aboard. If he’s Mezul we 
shall know it and you shall have your reward. 
You’ll be telegraphed to from the other side. 


SOME INFORMATION ABOUT MEZUL 211 


Now tell me your name, say it quick, and say 
it plain !” 

Gustavus said it slowly and absently. The 
bear upon the deck stood up and begged to 
Gustavus, then uttered a pleading cry that was 
almost like a child’s. 

Gustavus sprang to the plank. The boss had 
turned away as soon as he had written down the 
name. In the confusion no one observed Gus- 
tavus — no one but Manuel. He shouted to him 
to come back ; the great steamer was about to 
swing off! 

Gustavus did not hear or heed ; the bear 
wagged his paws and whined, and Gustavus had 
ears for nothing else. Could one see his heart’s 
friend, who was but small, carried off to sea with 
the circus, carried off alone on an ocean steamer 
across the broad Atlantic ? Manuel, too, sprang 
upon the plank and crossed to the deck. 

How wide, how wide was the chasm that the 
first swing of tli e great steamer made! It 
seemed a sudden severing from home, from 
friends, from all the world ! 

Gustavus recognized Manuel and clung to 
him witli a great, dry sob. The confusion was 
still too great for any one to observe them. 


212 


CAPE COD BOY 


There were strange, homesick, almost human 
cries from the depths of the ship, where multi- 
tudes of animals were stored — the wild laugh 
of the hyena, the whimpering of the elephants, 
the chatter of the monkeys. Through the even- 
ing dusk came a far-off chime of Christmas 
bells. Gustavus put his arm around Manuel’s 
neck and his sturdy frame trembled. 

“This is an orfle queer fix; not much like a 
Scauset Christmas,” he murmured. “ But as 
long as I’ve got you, Manny, and the bear — ” 

A sudden joyful recollection pierced Manuel’s 
bewildered dismay. 

“ The pilot-boat !” he cried. " “ He meet the 
steamer off Sandy Hook ! They will know by 
that time that he is the great Mezul, and you 
will be sure of the thousand dollars. Perhaps 
you share a little with Emilio, since it was not 
he that steal the bear, and he have some claim. 
And to-morrow we go home to Scauset. It will 
still be Christmas. The ice-cream himself” — 
Gustavus had a sweet tooth — “ Caddy will not 
have let the freeze go out of him !” 

“ How you think of things !” said Gustavus, 
and the red returned to his freckled cheeks. 

“ There is never a scrape wuthout a way out 
of him,” said Manuel, calmly. 


CHAPTER XII 


THE TESTING OF THE BEAR 

The circus steamer was sailing steadily out 
of New York Harbor with Manuel Silva and 
Gustavus Nickerson on board. 

Gustavus’ fears had been relieved at first 
when Manuel told him of the pilot-boat, but 
yet he was not sure that he wished to go back 
and leave the bear. 

He was full of the triumph of having made 
Emilio virtually acknowledge that he or his 
father had stolen the bear. It was that which 
he had wished to do rather than to seek for the 
reward. 

“ Yes, sir, he stole that bear! Would he 
have sneaked away like that, if he hadn’t ?” he 
demanded eagerly of Manuel, even while 
Manuel’s little peaked Portuguese face was still 
white with excitement and dismay. Manuel 
did not properly feel the importance of that 

213 


214 


A CAPE COD BOY 


bear. How they should get back to New York 
was what he was thinking of; and while the 
beautiful lights of New York were being merged 
into a red flame upon the sky, and the deck 
under his feet began to rise and fall with the 
swell of the sea, he listened eagerly for the 
whistle of the pilot-boat. 

The manager, who had gone below with the 
bear, did not return. There was still a great 
hurry and bustle and the sound of tramping 
feet. The strains of a band suddenly mingled 
with the strange, wild cries of the animals from 
below. 

“ We’re going home, we’re going home !” It 
was a tune that they sometimes sang in Scauset. 
prayer-meetings. Manuel was afraid that it 
might make Gustavus feel frightened and 
homesick. 

It caused a little constriction in his seventeen- 
year-old throat to think what would happen if 
they couldn’t go back in the pilot-boat. His 
thoughts were a queer medley. He saw Cap’ll 
’Siali, lonely, with the checker-board (Cap’n 
’Siah thought that no one could play checkers 
like Manny), and Caddy wiping away her tears 
that they might not fall on the flapjacks, of 


THE TESTING OF THE BEAR 


215 


which she made so few because Manny was not 
there. Of the patent he was to secure on Asher 
Baker’s knitting-machine — when, oh, when 
would the poor old man know that his life-long 
dream, at which people had mocked and jeered, 
was coming true? Of the show that he and 
Gustavus had once had on the Striped Marsh 
beach — that, of course, was the association of 
ideas, and of a great tunny that got away from 
them when Gustavus wanted him for a show. 

Gustavus would be likely to get his fill of a 
show if they couldn’t get off the steamer ! 
“ Hark ! I think I hear him — the whistle of 
the pilot-boat !” he said, eagerly. 

“ I don’t want to go back,” said Gustavus, 
firmly. “ I can’t go back without the bear !” 

“ Think !” said Manny, earnestly, and he 
pointed back toward the great red light. 
“ Behind is Scauset! We that are young must 
take care of him and of the building boom that 
we have start. No one shall say that we run 
away from our own town because he is small !” 

Perhaps these sentiments were a little too 
elevated for Gustavus, fir he folded his arms 
resolutely, and the cloud did not lift from his 
freckled face. 


216 


A CAPE COD BOY 


“ To run away on a circus steamer to Liver- 
pool, that is a worse thing far than to run away 
to Boston !” said Manuel, severely. 

“ I never ! The steamer ran away with me,” 
said Gustavus, sulkily. “ And I think more of 
the bear than I do of Scauset, or anything !” 

A shrill little whistle sounded across the 
waters, and Manuel rushed off in search of the 
manager and the man who had carried off the 
the bear. He met them coming up from below, 
and with them was a queer little old man whose 
wrinkled face looked like a mummy’s under his 
red skull-cap. The bear, walking as if he were 
very lame, and with the wild-beast look in his 
eyes, as the boys had seen it when they discov- 
ered him upon the derelict Delight, was being 
tugged along by the little old man. 

“It is a stupid beast like any other !” he cried, 
in a shrill voice. “ He would be vicious, too, if 
one did not know how to handle him like me! 
It is only a poor old street bear that may have 
danced in his day, but is now so lame that he 
will never dance again. And the boy wants 
the thousand dollars’ reward that was offered 
for Mezul — the great Mezul — that has aston- 
ished all the crowned heads of Europe, and was 


THE TESTING OF THE BEAR 


217 


covered with decorations ! He may have a look 
like Mezul.” The old man turned suddenly 
and looked in a bewildered way at the bear. 
“ But he knows no tricks ; he has no intelli- 
gence. I can make a bear show all that he 
knows, I, if any one in the world. I have 
trained animals for more than fifty years ; 
there is not a bear of any reputation in the 
world but I know him ! There are few, few ; 
a bear is most often a sulky, stupid brute — 
like that.” 

The bear had suddenly caught sight of Gus- 
tavus, and, under the great glaring deck light, 
lie drew himself up on his hind legs and wagged 
his great paws beseechingly. The wild light in 
his eyes gave way to an almost human softness. 

The little old man thrust his skull-capped 
head close to the bear’s, and stared at him again 
in a puzzled way. 

“ If he is Mezul, why, it wouldn’t do to let 
him go,” said the manager ; “ he’d be worth 
more than a thousand dollars to us.” 

The great steamer had slackened its speed. 
The little screaming pilot-boat was alongside. 

“ We go off in the pilot-boat,” said Manuel, 
anxiously. There were more important things 


218 


A CAPE COD BOV 


in the world than a bear, he thought, sensibly, 
whether he were the great Mezul or not. 

“ We have not try to cheat you/’ he added, 
earnestly, for Manuel was careful of his reputa- 
tion as a strictly honorable business man. “ The 
collar we find upon the bear’s neck it say plainly 
he is the great Mezul, and worth five thousand 
dollars.” 

The manager shook his head. 

“ It was a good many years ago that Mezul was 
worth five thousand dollars,” he said. “ And this 
old fellow, it seems, isn’t Mezul. We should be 
glad enough to pay the reward that we offered 
if he were. We’ll have that pilot-boat wait a 
minute until the matter is definitely settled. I 
never saw Mezul myself, but I must say that 
this fellow doesn’t look to me like a common 
bear.” 

“ This bear can do nothing ! Not a trick !” 
cried the little old trainer, shrilly. Again 
Gustavus held up his hand, and the bear began 
to march, slowly, stiffly, because of his lame- 
ness. 

The trainer laughed — a cackling, scornful 
laugh. 

“ There are bears, a hundred, that go about 


THE TESTING OF THE BEAR 


219 


the streets with hurdy-gurdies that can do better 
than that,” he said. “ And you call him the 
great Mezul ! Why, listen, and I will tell you 
what Mezul could do ! A glass of water, full, 
brimming, would Mezul balance upon his nose, 
and not a drop would be spilt ! — not a drop 
would be spilt !” 

Gustav us was grave, and the color burned 
hotly in his freckled cheeks. 

“ Try the bear with a glass ! Give the old 
fellow a fair chance !” cried one of the circus 
people. 

The pilot-boat screamed impatiently, and 
Manuel took Gustavus by the arm. 

“ Come, we will go home ; you and I and the 
bear ; home to Scauset,” he said. 

“ If — if he is really Mezul, will you take me 
with him ?” demanded Gustavus, brokenly. 
“ Yet I could not go either.” Gustavus looked 
back, as if they were the Scauset shores over 
which the great red light hung behind them. 
“ I have found out that a boy is foolish to run 
away !” He turned to the manager, and his 
sturdy little frame seemed to grow taller. “ I 
am glad you think he is not Mezul,” he cried. 
“ I would rather have him than to have the 


220 


A CAPE COD BOY 


money. If he is a poor, old, stupid bear that 
can do nothing, as that man says, I like him 
all the same. We had a hard time together, in 
the woods, in the winter ; we were cold and 
hungry together, and — and helped each other. 
We like each other, he and I.” 

Gustavus turned away — all those circus 
people were staring — and furtively drew his 
jacket sleeve across his eyes. 

“ It is strange that you should try to palm 
him off on us as the great Mezul, if you do not 
want to part with him ! It is strange that you 
should find out how fond you are of him only 
when you cannot cheat us out of the thousand 
dollars !” said the little old man, sneeringly. 

He was evidently nettled by the bear’s stub- 
born refusal even to dance at his bidding, while 
he had done it readily at sight of Gustavus. 

“ I never try to cheat !” cried Gustavus, in- 
dignantly. “ I can prove — ” 

“ Here, try him with the glass !” cried one of 
the circus men, and he handed to Gustavus a 
wine-glass brimming with water. 

The bear was down upon all fours now, and 
stood close beside Gustavus, the boy’s hand 
resting upon his head. 


THE TESTING OF THE BEAK 


221 


Gustavus stood still with the glas£ in his 
hand, and his sturdy little frame actually 
trembled. The bear seemed trying to rise 
again upon his hind legs, but Gustavus’s hand 
remained upon his head and held him down. 
He shook his head impatiently , those nearest to 
him saw a sudden fire and frolic in his eye ; a 
look that showed he was once a merry fellow. 

Gustavus hesitated only for a moment. Then 
he handed back the glass. 

“ We will go home, Bub! — you and Manny 
and I ; home to Scauset,” he said. And with 
his hand in the bear’s collar he started firmly 
for the lower deck, from whence they could 
board the pilot-boat. 

Scornful titters and some murmurs of pity 
followed the little party. 

“ Could he do it — that bear ? Could a pig do 
it!” cried the little old trainer in utter derision. 

That gibe rang in Gustavus’s ears and would 
not be drowned by the screech of the boat. 

The little craft tossed up and down in a heavy 
sea. The great circus steamer steamed on into 
the wide Atlantic. 

“ That was an orfle great chance for a fellow, 
if he hadn’t run away once. Yes, sir, I think 


222 


A CAPE COP BOY 


I could have made them take me,” said little 
Gustavus, who still kept his hand in the bear’s 
collar. “ But I was afraid they wouldn’t, and 
I didn’t want to go. And I couldn’t let them 
have the bear without me! No, sir, fellows 
have got their feelings for each other when 
they’ve been through troubles together. I’ll 
never part from Mezul.” 

The pilot, who had heard the reason of the 
steamer’s long delay, winked facetiously at 
Manuel. 

“ He sticks to it that he’s got the right bear, 
don’t he ?” he said. 

“ Tommy, make way for your uncle.” That 
was the rollicking strain that the band played 
as the great steamer sailed away, and cheers, 
that seemed to the boys full of derision, followed 
the pilot-boat and the bear. 

“ I’ll live to show ’em ! I’ll prove to ’em yet 
that lie’s the great Mezul !” cried Gustavus, and 
he shook his stout, freckled fist at the steamer. 

The pilot — he was not the red-faced, jovial 
story-book pilot, but a lean, little man who 
looked as if he had been salted and dried by 
sea and wind, like a cured codfish — winked 
again openly at Manuel. 


THE TESTING OF THE BEAR 


223 


“ You needn’t let on any more, sonny,” he 
said, easily. “ You’re amongst friends. Con- 
siderable of a temptation for a little country 
feller like you to get a thousand dollars by 
makin’ folks think you’d got a bear with a 
reputation. I guess, mebbe, they’re like folks 
with a reputation, anyhow. They don’t always 
amount to any more ’n anybody else.” 

Gustavus’s eyes flashed. 

“ So you think I’m a cheat, do you ?” he 
cried angrily. “ You heard what the trainer 
said that no bear but Mezul could do ? Will 
you give me a glass of water ?” 

There was only a glass tumbler on board the 
pilot-boat. Gustavus filled it full to the brim 
from a water-pitcher that the pilot handed him. 
Then he waved his hand, and the bear arose 
upon his hind legs in the cabin of the little 
pilot-boat, which was scarcely large enough for 
him to stand upright. Manuel laid his hand 
upon the shoulder of “his heart’s friend,” 
which was fairly quivering with indignation 
and excitement. 

“ No bear could balance the glass of water on 
his nose while the boat pitch and toss so,” he 
said. 


224 


A CAPE COD BOY 


“ But you don’t know him. You’ve been at- 
tending to your building boom,” cried little 
Gustavus, in whose bosom there had always 
rankled a certain indifference that Manuel had 
shown toward the bear. Manuel clearly thought 
that a bear, eveti the great Mezul, was only boys’ 
play. “ When he carried off Caddy’s preserves, 
out of the window, down the spout, and across 
the fields, I knew there were more things that 
he could do, and I tried him. Attention ! Steady 
now, Bub.” 

That gay and frolicsome light appeared again 
in the old beast’s eyes. He held his head up 
eagerly for the glass that Gustavus placed upon 
his nose. He carried it with apparent ease as 
he moved about, adapting his motions to the 
pitch and toss of the boat in a way that was 
quite wonderful to see. 

“ Pooh ! That is nothing,” said little Gusta- 
vus, when a chorus of applause arose, the 
heartiest coming from the sailors who looked in 
at the door. “ If I had a long-stemmed glass 
and space for him, then you should see.” 

“ As there was on the deck of the steamer,” 
said Manuel, quietly. “ And yet you would not 
let him try.” 


THE TESTING OF THE BEAE 


225 


Gustavus turned away his head shamefacedly, 
and strangled a great sob in his throat. Truly 
the struggle between different emotions had been 
hard for little Gustavus. 

“ Then they would have known that he was 
the great Mezul, and I should have had to give 
him up. Now he is only Bub, and my bear for 
ever ’n’ ever ! That fellow Emilio will never 
dare to claim him again, and the circus people 
can’t. He’s my bear, and one of these days I’ll 
show them what he can do ! And if he couldn’t 
do a thing, if he was always old and lame and 
stupid, as he was with the trainer, he’d be Bub 
all the same, and I’d rather have him than to 
have five thousand dollars.” 

They landed from the little pilot-boat, and 
stood again upon the long, long wharf — Manuel, 
Gustavus, and the bear. 

The great city was still ablaze with Christmas 
lights and alive with Christmas bells — the great, 
strange city. And the Scauset Christmas festival 
must be held without them. But to-morrow 
they would go home, and their hearts were gay. 

“ He’s mine for ever ’n’ ever, and some day 
I’ll show ’em !” repeated Gustavus. 


15 


CHAPTER XIII 


GTJSTAVUS KEEPS THE BEAR 

Some day he would prove to those circus 
people that the bear was Mezul, thought Gus- 
tavus, for they never could take him away from 
him now that they had declared, in the presence 
of witnesses, that he was not their bear. 

That fellow Emilio would never dare to claim 
him again, either. Had he not disappeared like 
a streak of lightning when he, Gustavus, had 
accused him of having stolen the bear ? A 
fellow who had any reason or justice on his 
side would have shown fight a little. 

So said Gustavus to himself triumphantly, as 
they stood upon the New York pier and at that 
very moment, from the shadow of a tall build- 
ing, out stepped Emilio ! 

The bear growled like a muttering of distant 
thunder, just as he always did when anything 
that he disliked came near him, just as he 
226 


GUSTAYUS KEEPS THE BEAR 


227 


would always growl at Tom Tinker, Cap’n Seba 
Oakes’ yellow dog, long before any one else saw 
liim. 

“ You couldn’t make them believe you, could 
you?” cried Emilio scornfully, and his dark, 
sullen face was full of triumph. “ A fine plan 
to make me out a thief and get my bear from 
me ! What tricks would he do for you ? — you 
who know no more how to train a bear than 
does a sand-peep ? If there had been more time I 
would not have gone away and let myself be 
called a thief. But I did not want to be carried 
away on the steamer. I am my own man now ” 
— Emilio drew himself up to his full seventeen 
years of height — “ it is a dog that they make of 
you in those shows ! I thought you would come 
back on the pilot-boat. Manuel Silva has a 
head on his shoulders. You — you little Cape 
Cod-fish have only a top to you !” 

Gustavus’ temper came near to getting into 
his fists, and the bear growled sympathetically. 

“ See ! Yon have teach my own bear to growl 
at me, but for all that I could make him tear you 
to pieces. There is always bear in bear ! Now 
give him to me and be thankful if I let you 
carry your little cod-fish skin whole to Scauset.” 


228 


A CAPE COD BOY 


Give the bear to him indeed ! 

“Well, haven’t you got cheek?” said little 
Gustavus, and tightened his grip upon the bear’s 
collar. 

But Manuel shook his head gravely. “ There 
is question of right,” he said. “ It is still to 
prove that the bear was stolen. They abandon 
him, but the vessel was aground and they have 
their own lives to save. Frightened bear he 
is hard to manage. It is not easy to get bear 
from vessel into row-boat. We all come to 
the house where I stop and we talk over who 
have right to the bear !” 

All this Manuel said with the air of a judge, 
while both boys had their hands under the 
bear’s collar, and he was growling — like very 
near and heavy thunder now. 

Gustavus scowled darkly at Manuel at first ; 
it really seemed as if he were taking that fel- 
low’s side. But Manuel’s argument j)re vailed 
with him and the bear’s argument prevailed 
with Emilio ! 

They went through by-ways, for it was well 
to avoid the crowded thoroughfares, with the 
bear in his present mood, to the Portuguese 
boarding-house that Manuel had found. 




GUSTAVUS KEEPS THE BEAR 


229 


The landlady gave them a late dinner pri- 
vately, and did not object to the bear, who 
growled between his chicken bones, and would 
not dance in the kitchen for the maids and the 
children. 

Manuel laid the bear case before Emilio when 
his heart was softened by a good dinner, includ- 
ing a Christmas pudding that was nearly all 
nuts and plums, and that only a Portugese cook 
knows how to make. 

Manuel reasoned like a lawyar and a philoso- 
pher, but Gustavus thought that he was more 
than fair to the other side. He could not con- 
vince Emilio that Gustavus ought to have the 
bear, but, from refusing to quitclaim him for 
less than live hundred dollars, before that Por- 
tugese dinner, he agreed in the middle of it to 
let him go for fifty, and after the Portugese 
pudding he agreed to let Gustavus have him 
for fifteen and to throw in ail that he knew 
about shows and about the management of 
bears, plainly written down. 

When one considered that Emilio had been 
born and brought up in a circus, and had trav- 
eled with a bear almost all his life, one can see 
how valuable such information might be to a 


230 


A CAPE COD BOY 


boy like Gustavus, whose great ambition had 
always been to have a show. 

Fifteen dollars ! But, alas ! Gustavus had 
no funds whatever. Never before had poverty 
stabbed him so keenly, for it really seemed that 
Emilio had a lawful claim to the bear. 

Manuel, after only a moment’s hesitation, took 
some bills from his pocket. He did not regard 
bears very highly as an investment, but could 
he do less than this for his heart’s friend ? 

But having taken the money from his pocket, 
he thrust it in again and called for another 
plate of the pudding. 

The eagerness in Emilio’s face changed to 
anxiety. There was, in truth, but a very faint 
and feeble jingling in Emilio’s pocket. And 
little Gustavus turned so pale that he looked 
astonishingly freckled. 

“ Your father it is he who must sign paper 
giving up all claim to the bear,” said Manuel, 
calmly eating his pudding. Gustavus was filled 
with admiration, for he knew that he should 
never have thought of that. 

“ I will get paper from him,” said Emilio 
quickly. “ He is here in New York. I will 
bring it to you to-night, or, if I cannot find him, 


GUSTAVUS KEEPS THE BEAR 


231 


then early in the morning. I will take the bear 
with me and bring him, too, in the morning; ” 

“ No, you will leave the bear. I keep him 
here and give you the fifteen dollar, like man of 
honor,” said Manuel. 

Again Manuel’s argument was reinforced by 
the bear’s, for he snarled fiercely when Emilio 
went near him. 

Emilio went lingeringly, as if he suspected 
that the boys meant to run away with the bear ; 
but he went. And when he had gone Gustavus 
and the bear both rejoiced. The bear performed 
the tumbler trick also, and it was gay that 
night in the Portuguese kitchen. 

But Gustavus murmured drowsily to Man- 
uel, just before sleep overcame him, that he 
wouldn’t let the bear do that again until he 
could make a great sensation with him — per- 
haps first in the new town hall at Scauset. 

Emilio appeared early the next morning 
with a dingy scrap of paper on which was 
written, in a curious mixture of Englisli-Portu- 
guese and Portuguese-English, a bill of sale of 
the bear. It was properly signed, “ Michael 
Fereda,” signed in a queer, cramped, almost 
illegible hand, different from that in which it 


232 


A CAPE COD BOY 


was written, which Manuel knew to be Emilio’s, 
and he was satisfied that it was a genuine sig- 
nature. And it was properly “ witnessed ” by 
the signature of two Portuguese names. 

What Emilio knew about the show business 
was contained in a bulky envelope and sealed. 

“ Me, I go into another business,” said 
Emilio, grandly, “ and I sell you all cheap — 
dirt cheap !” 

It was a happy party that set out for Scauset, 
that morning, Manuel, Gustavus, and the bear. 
One would have thought that the bear knew he 
was going back to the Cape and was glad of it. 
He turned somersaults until the maids in the 
kitchen were convulsed with laughter 4 and 
showed what a merry fellow he had once been. 

Manuel would not give Gustavus time to 
open Emilio’s bulky envelope until they were 
on the train homeward bound. Manuel did not 
wish to lose all of the Scauset Christmas, and 
he wished to carry poor Asher Baker his 
heart’s desire — the news that his patent had 
been granted while it might yet be called a 
Christmas gift*. 

The bear had to go in the baggage car, and, 
for a while, Gustavus stayed there with him, 


GUSTAVUS KEEPS THE BEAR 


233 


but when lie had gone contentedly to sleep he 
returned to Manuel in the passenger car. 

To his surprise Manuel seemed ^anxious about 
the bear and thought that Gustavus would bet- 
ter not have left him — Manuel, who had at first 
scoffed at the idea that it was necessary to stay 
in the baggage car at all. 

“I’m going to find out whether that fellow 
says anything about his being Mezul, anyhow, ” 
said Gustavus. For there had been so much 
noise and confusion in the baggage car that he 
had found it impossible to read. 

He settled himself in a seat and broke the 
seal of the envelope ; but Manuel, with a sharp 
line between his brows, had hurried off to the 
baggage car to take care of the bear. 

The truth was that Manuel had seen both 
Emilio and his father hanging about the station, 
and he instantly suspected that they meant to 
recover the bear. 

Manuel walked through the long train and dis- 
covered no trace of either of them, but they were 
tramps, and would know how to secrete them- 
selves. Manuel was not wholly reassured, and 
he remained in the baggage-car, where Gustavus 
shortly joined him, red and fuming with wrath. 


234 


A CAPE COD BOY 


The directions for managing a show, written 
on a very large sheet of paper, were contained 
in these few words : 

“ A feller that don’t no a famous Performing 
Bear from a ordinary one and thinks he can get 
the start of Emilio Fereda, had better go and 
burry himself in a sand-bank.” 

“ But I believe the bear is Mezul, all the same, 
don’t you ?” said Gustavus, after he had candidly 
expressed his opinion of that sneak of an Emilio. 

“ Yes, I do, and I think we’ve got to take care 
of him, too !” said Manuel. And he told Gus- 
tavus of his suspicion that Emilio and his 
father were on the train, and the boys did not 
let the bear go out of their sight until they had 
him safely locked in the wood-shed chamber of 
Cap’ll ’Siah’s house at Porcupine Point. 

There they were a little inclined to be 
ashamed of their fears, and Gustavus soon 
abandoned his purpose to sleep in the wood-shed 
chamber to protect the bear. They decided that 
it was probably true that Emilio and his father 
were going into another business, and had no 
further use for an old bear, so would leave Gus- 
tavus in joyful, undisputed possession of the 
bear. 


CHAPTER XIV 


emilio’s trick 

When the little Portergee, Manuel Silva, 
came home from New York, Scauset people 
began to wonder, as they had done the winter 
before, what he was going to do with himself. 
Even now that there was a “ building boom,” 
Scauset was not a very lively place in the 
winter, and Manuel was what the townspeople 
called “up and cornin’.” Gustavus Nickerson, 
Manuel’s “ heart’s friend,” was the most eager 
to discover what the little Portergee was going 
to do, because, whatever it was, he meant to do 
it, too. 

Manuel and he had accomplished great things 
together in New York, or so Gustavus felt. 
They had brought the bear home in triumph, 
and Manuel had paid the rascal, Michael 
Fereda, who claimed him, so now Gustavus 
was sole owner of the great Mezul. 


235 


236 


A CAPE COB BOY 


Of course he meant to pay Manuel just as 
soon as possible, and he had clearly proved to 
his mother and his brother Ludovico — his sister 
Viola, who wanted to manage everybody, was 
married now, and Cyrus Deuce, the school- 
master, had all the trouble of her — that he 
must go into business rather than to go to 
school. He further declared that schooling 
did not “ take ” with him any more than vac- 
cination, which he had suffered three times in 
vain. And in fact there were reasons to sup- 
pose that the education of books would always 
prove a failure with little Gustavus. Yet 
Manuel earnestly advised him to go to school. 
“ To try to make your way in the world with 
no learning in your head, it is like sailor that 
go to sea with nothing to steer by,” he said. 

“ ’Twould be kind of a joke on you if Manny 
should go to school now, wouldn’t it?” Ludo- 
vico said to Gustavus. “ And if he should go 
away from Scauset, you don’t expect he would 
take you with him, do you ? I guess he’d look 
out that you didn’t go tagging after him as you 
did before.” 

Ludovico was lame, and he hardly saw how 
he was to find “ a breathing chance ” in the 


emilio’s teick 


237 


world, and that made him cross sometimes. 
And brotherly frankness is not always the most 
agreeable thing in the world. Gustavus’s heart 
burned within him at these dreadful words of 
his brother Ludovico. 

He dropped his axe ; he and Ludovico were 
chopping wood in their wood-shed, and it was 
about that time in the afternoon when a boy 
who has chopped all day feels that life is hard 
enough without any such candid remarks from 
his big brother. Gustavus dropped his axe and 
ran as fast as he could to the weather-beaten 
house on the Point. 

Manuel was not at home. Caddy Doane said 
that she had sent him to the store, and after he 
had accepted one of Caddy’s doughnuts and 
scowled at Anita, with the baby in her lap, be- 
cause she was Emilio Fereda’s sister, and Emilio 
had run away with the bear, Gustavus ran on 
to the store. 

Now the post-office was in the store, and as 
Gustavus reached it, Manuel was coming out 
with a letter in his hand, and as he read this 
letter he allowed the sugar to trickle out of the 
great paper bag under his arm. 

And when he saw it, Gustavus knew that 


238 


A CAPE COD BOY 


there was some very important news in that 
letter. He took the paper bag from Manuel, 
and carried it so that the sugar would not run 
out, and did not say a single word until Manuel 
had finished reading his letter, which was cer- 
tainly the part of a faithful friend. Manuel 
looked up from the letter with his peaked, 
tawny face all aglow. 

“I had thought to go to school to Mr. 
Dence,” he said, with a slight touch of regret 
in his tone. “Although I am almost nineteen, 
and my legs grow long under the small desks, 
and Sissy Baker, with her hair in pigtail, she 
spell me down, yet I had meant to go, for it is 
better to be laughed at for what you do not 
know in the small school than in the great 
world ! But now I go sailing-master again — 
sailing-master of a fine new yacht, as big by 
two times as the other! Mr. Carmichael think 
of it when I see him in New York, but his 
plans are not ready — he is not sure. We go in 
the fine new yacht to Southern waters — perhaps 
to Havana, to Santiago, to Manila, even to the 
Azores ! Though I am Yankee, as good as 
any on Cape Cod, yet my heart it draw me 
there!” 


emilio’s trick 


239 


Little Gustavus pricked up his ears at the 
sound of those names, made familiar by the re- 
ports of the war with Spain. 

Many a Cape Cod boy had seen those places. 
The little Portergee had found at that time that 
he was all Yankee, and yearned to go. Now it 
was Manuel’s turn to rescue the sugar, for a 
great stream was running out upon the snowy 
road ! 

Manuel patched up the paper bag and tied it 
up, while Gustavus turned his head away to 
hide as wretched and despairing a face as he 
had ever turned to the wintry waters that were 
always luring him away from Cape Cod. 

Ludovico was right ! Gustavus had never 
read about the unhappiness of the man who 
hangs on prince’s favors, but he felt, with a 
cruel pang, that Manuel was becoming far too 
great a man for him to hope to be his friend. 
He was going away on this cruise to places 
whose very names stirred a longing in his heart, 
and he had not a thought for any one but 
himself ! 

“ To go to school and to help Asher Baker 
with his knitting machine, that is what I meant ; 
and they will grieve at home to have me go. 


240 


A CAPE COD BOY 


But it will be much money that I bring home ; 
the anxious bump of Cap’ll ’.Siah I smooth him 
out. Young Josiah he go some day to college. 
Little Israel shall, I hope, be captain of a Cu- 
narder, though now he think he desire only to 
ride the elephant in a circus,” said Manuel, with 
an indulgent smile at little Israel’s childishness. 
“ Almost any Cape Cod boy he have it in him 
to be captain of a Cunarder,” added Manuel, 
with enthusiasm. 

“ Llewellyn Briggs, of Fleetwell, that run 
away to sea when he was a boy, b’longs to a 
show,” remarked Gustavus, in an aggrieved and 
sullen tone. “ It’s a big show, and ’twas going 
South this winter, but it got stranded — that 
means the money gave out — up to Bockton. 
The folks are all there, and the animals, too, in 
a great big kind of a stable they’ve built. Llewel- 
lyn he takes care of the animals and trains ’em. 
He lived here in Scauset one time, and he 
couldn’t spell any better’ll I can ! But its orfle 
hard to begin to be a great man — when you 
liain’t got any friends to help you — but a 
bear.” 

Manuel laid his hand affectionately on Gus- 
tavus’ small, sturdy shoulder. But Gustavus 


emilio’s trick 


241 


still kept his face turned toward the wintry sea 
to hide the briny drops in his eyes, which one 
cannot allow even one’s heart’s friend to 
behold. 

“ Cape Cod boy he find friends everywhere,” 
said Manuel, consolingly. “ On board the yacht 
and in my beautiful islands you will find many, 
for you are Cape Cod boy, and my friend. Of 
course I make him all right in New York when 
Mr. Carmichael talk about it first ! And they 
will let you go. You will not need to run 
away ; for it is as sailing-master’s assistant, with 
good wages, that you go ! For I have said to 
Mr. Carmichael that Cape Cod boy it is born in 
him, like Portuguese, to sail a ship. And I go 
not unless my heart’s friend, Gustavus Nicker- 
son he go too.” 

Gustavus did not throw himself into Manuel’s 
arms, as he would have done if he had been 
another little Portergee. He gave vent to his 
overcharged feelings in the only way that was 
possible to him — by turning a somersault on the 
snowy, hubbly road. 

And Manuel understood all that the somer- 
sault meant, and was quite satisfied. There was 
grief in the little house at the Point, but Cap’n 


242 


A CAPE COD BOY 


’Siah consoled himself somewhat by thinking, 
and saying with a grand air, that they could not 
expect that Scauset would be quite big enough 
for Manny nowadays. 

Gustavus Nickerson’s mother laughed incred- 
ulously, and then wiped her eyes. Little Gus- 
tavus, not yet fifteen, assistant to the sailing- 
master of a yacht ! She thought with regret of 
the switch that had hung up behind the wood- 
shed door. Gustavus was anxious lest his bear 
should be lonesome in the wood-shed chamber 
at Cap’n ’Siali’s, for there was such a prejudice 
against bears in Scauset that he had to be con- 
fined there most of the time. Manuel and Gus- 
tavus gave him much of their society, but it 
certainly would be very dull for Mezul in the 
wood-shed chamber when they were gone. 

Gustavus had a bright idea. He wrote to his 
old friend, Llewellyn Briggs, now Signor Brig- 
nosi, of the “ Grand Educational Menagerie and 
Panorama,” and Llewellyn replied that he 
would be glad to take care of the bear for the 
winter, if he were really the great Mezul, with 
the agreement that he should appear at a cer- 
tain number of his company’s performances in 
the spring. 


emilio’s trick 


243 


Llewellyn hinted that this might lead to a 
permanent engagement for the bear, and Gus- 
tavus’ heart thrilled with an unconfessed hope 
that it might mean an engagement for him also. 

He did not confess this hope, because Manuel 
did not seem to have a very high opinion of the 
show business. He thought that a fellow ought 
to do great things for Scauset, or something to 
“ make himself a man,” as he said. And the 
sea was always “ the road of the bold” to 
Manuel. 

But Gustavus wrote with enthusiasm and un- 
mentionable spelling to Signor Brignosi, saying 
that he would bring the bear to him at Bockton 
on his way to Boston to sail in the yacht ; and 
he added, in a postscript, that he felt within 
himself a talent for taming lions and “ edgeucate- 
ing bares.” 

When the day of departure arrived the two 
boys arose very early to take the four-o’clock 
train up from the Cape. 

Scarcely a mouthful of the nice hot breakfast 
that Caddy had prepared could either of them 
eat. Manuel thought it as well that the leave- 
takings should be hurried, for Cap’n ’Siah was 
old and feeble now to bear the strain of parting, 


244 


A CAPE COD BOY 


and Anita, who was Portuguese, wept aloud as 
a Cape Cod girl does not permit herself to do. 

The bear, sleepy and reluctant, had to be 
dragged down the wood-shed stairs, and actually 
growled at Caddy’s doughnuts, of which Gus- 
tavus carried a bagful, as there was no time to give 
Mezul any other breakfast. 

“ I never knew Mezul to object to make a 
journey before,” said Manuel, wonderingly. 
“And he delight himself, other times, in the 
good doughnuts of Caddy.” 

“ It’s orfle early, and I s’pose a bear has his 
feelings,” srid Gustavus, with a sympathetic 
yawn. “ I ’most wish ’t we’d taken a lantern,” 
he added, for it was still very dark, as they 
plunged into the Fleetwell road — they were 
obliged to walk to Fleetwell, where they were 
to take the train, as they could find no convey- 
ance for the bear. 

The stars blinked frostily in the far-off winter 
sky, and Scauset was still soundly sleeping. 
No, one person was stirring ; a short, thick-set 
figure appeared from the Striped Marsh road. 

“ Mr. Dence ?” called Manuel, for he thought 
it would be like the schoolmaster to come to say 
good-by to them. 


EMILIO S TRICK 


245 


But instead of answering, the figure took to 
its heels. 

Manuel’s sharp eyes peered into the dark- 
ness. 

“ It look — the size and the way he run — like 
Emilio,” he said. 

And Gustavus echoed “ Emilio !” in a tone of 
conviction. 

“ If he’s come back, it isn’t for any good,” he 
added, seriously. “ But, anyhow, we’ve got the 
bear !” And Gustavus threw his arm around 
the great beast’s neck as they walked. 

The bear growled a little. 

“ It’s hard for an old bear to be dragged out 
so early,” said Gustavus, apologetically, when 
Manuel expressed his surprise — for Mezul had 
never before growled at his friends. The train 
stopped but a minute or two at the Fleetwell 
station in the frosty darkness. They were 
forced to hustle the bear into the baggage-car 
with their trunks. It was cold, but the bag- 
gage-master was kind, and gave them an old 
•overcoat to cover him. 

The two boys went into the smoking-car ad- 
joining, where there was then no one but them- 
selves; and both were aroused from a sound 


246 


A CAPE COB BOY 


sleep by the banging of doors and the con- 
ductor’s shout of “ Rockton !” 

It was not yet seven o’clock, and was still 
dark in the cloudy winter morning. Signor 
Brignosi was at the station, as he had promised 
to be. He was dressed in ordinary, somewhat 
shabby clothes, and he was, as Gustavus said to 
himself with some disappointment, only Llew- 
ellyn Briggs, just as he used to be. 

The boys both talked together in their eager 
haste to tell Llewellyn what a wonderful bear 
Mezul was, and just how he should be cared for. 
The train rushed off again so soon that Gus- 
tavus still shouted charges from the platform 
when he was beyond Llewellyn’s hearing. He 
had not trusted himself to take leave of the 
bear, that was still cross and sleepy. 

At half-past two o’clock that afternoon the 
fine new yacht was almost ready to sail. Gus- 
tavus, in a new suit almost as handsome as 
Manuel’s, and a gold-lettered cap, was trying to 
answer, without blushing, the nautical questions 
of Miss Stella Carmichael, aged sixteen, who 
was all over the yacht, so wrapped in furs that 
nothing human was visible except a pair of pink 
cheeks and a pair of bright eyes. 


EMILIO S TRICK 


247 


Gustavus might be weak grammatically, but 
lie knew the ropes. And he said to himself 
that he was not afraid of a girl ; not he ! al- 
though he knew that he was blushing furiously, 
and felt as if her bright eyes were turning him 
into a jelly-fish. Gustavus did not like girls, 
but one is not going to allow his satisfaction in 
sailing as an officer of a yacht to be affected by 
a trifle like that! An officer! Yes, sir; Man- 
uel said so ! 

And in his pride and delight he had almost 
stifled the pang that he had felt ever since he 
had left Mezul to the care of the trainer, when a 
strange and unexpected thing happened. 

A man in torn and soiled clothes, and with a 
handkerchief bound around his head, came 
limping hurriedly down the wharf. Signor 
Brig — No, you would not believe he could ever 
be anybody but Llewellyn Briggs ! 

“ Talk about your bear !” he cried, as soon as 
he caught sight of Gustavus. “ The great 
Mezul, do you call him ? He’s a young, green 
bear and as savage as a wolf ! He has torn me 
most to pieces, and if anybody can train him, I 
don’t want the job ! If you don’t get him away 
I shall have to put a bullet into him !” 


248 


A CAPE COD BOY 


A bullet into Mezul ! Even Manuel’s dark 
face turned white. 

“ Mezul never hurt anybody in the world — 
never !” cried Gustavus, angrily. 

“ Mezul !” repeated Llewellyn Briggs, scorn- 
fully. “ I tell you he is a young bear that has 
never been trained.” 

“ ‘ There is always bear in bear,’ ” quoted Mr. 
Carmichael. “ Bring him on board, boys, and 
let us hear what he has to say.” 

Llewellyn told a tale of fierce encounter with 
the bear, and his clothes bore witness to his 
truth-telling, as well as his bandaged head. 

Manuel listened, with the line deepening be- 
tween his brows. 

“ Emilio !” he murmured. “ Emilio !” 

But Gustavus could not see wh^t Emilio could 
have to do with it. He turned to go downstairs 
and change his handsome uniform for the clothes 
that would make him again only a common 
Scauset boy. 

“ I must go back and take care of Mezul,” he 
said, in a voice that he kept steady, though it 
had a sob in it. “ Him and me are friends. We 
took care of each other in the woods. 

“ You will give up such a fine cruise for a 


EMILIO*S TRICK 


249 


bear ?” exclaimed Mr. Carmichael, with a won- 
dering laugh. “ Tell him better, Manuel.” 

But Manuel shook his head, firmly. 

“ It is strange thing,” he said. “ Something 
must have been done to Mezul to make him 
savage like that. Now I remember he growl 
this morning, not like himself. If Gustavus 
did not stay, I must. Mezul is not common 
bear.” 

Llewellyn said he should think not, and put 
his hand to his bandaged head ruefully. He 
added that if he had a chance to go as a sailor 
again, he would prefer it to training bears. And 
Manners mind was not so bent upon the bear 
but that he could say a good word for Llewellyn 
to Mr. Carmichael, who at once engaged him on 
condition that he should be ready in an hour. 
One of the crew that he had engaged was mis- 
sing, so Llewellyn’s arrival was opportune. 

As Llewellyn hurried off to make his pre- 
parations, other unexpected visitors were seen 
making their way along the pier toward the 
yacht — Anita, with the baby in her arms, and 
dragging along on one side of her, Mezul, the 
great bear, on the other side her reluctant 
brother, Emilio. 


250 


A CAPE COD BOY 


“ It is only trick, bad trick of Emilio !” she 
cried, frantically, from the gang-plank, “ but he 
say he mean no harm. He change Mezul in 
the wood-slied chamber for a young bear that 
my father buy. He come to Scauset to make 
me go on the street with tambourine and bear 
again. My father can train young bear, but he 
will hurt somebody else, I fear, so I run away 
when I find Emilio in the road and hear what 
he have done. I must bring Mezul to you, and 
I have not time to take the baby home. Oh, if 
Mezul were not angel bear I could not have got 
here ! And Emilio he only want to know 
where is his bear.” 

Emilio was struggling, as if he did not really 
care even to wait for that information. 

“ It’s in Rockton, at the show,” called Manuel, 
“ and if he do not get himself out — ” 

“ Oh, bring the delightful bear on board !” 
cried Stella Carmichael, impulsively, “ and the 
girl and the baby. They look so cold.” 

Mezul insisted upon licking the faces of his 
friends, and took fancy steps upon the deck, 
to the great delight of every one on board the 
yacht, especially of the owner’s daughter. 

“ We deserve not to see Mezul again,” said 


emilio’s trick 


251 


Manuel, with feeling, “ when we could be de- 
ceived by a stupid, common bear !” 

“ It was so orfle dark and we were so sleepy — 
and whoever would have thought of such a 
thing ? Nobody in the world but that rascal 
Emilio would have dared to do it ! He meant 
to get away with Mezul after he had been paid 
for him !” 

“ He would have if it had not been for 
Anita,” said Manuel. 

“ Yes, sir, if it had not been for Anita !” said 
Gustavus, and the boys looked at each other — 
a look that meant they must not forget Anita. 

But at that very moment some one else was 
looking out for Anita. The young mistress of 
the yacht had warmed and comforted her in the 
cabin, and Anita had confided to her that the 
longing of her heart was to get to her grand- 
mother in the Azores, so that she need never 
again go on the streets with a performing bear, 
nor have her baby sister brought up to such a 
life. 

Now did it not seem providential that they 
were going to the Azores in that yacht ! That 
was the question that Stella asked her father be- 
hind the cabin door. And would it not be de- 


252 


A CAPE COD BOY 


lightful to have both a bear and a baby on 
board ? — so lively ! And if, as he said, the 
cruise was intended to restore her health — for it 
seemed the pink cheeks had only a little while 
before been pale — why, such lovely company 
would be sure to do it ! 

And although papa Carmichael shrugged his 
shoulders and frowned and said it was ridicu- 
lous, the result of the private conference was 
that he yielded — as is apt to be the way with 
fathers. 

A telegram was dispatched to the little house 
at the Point, that there might be no anxiety 
about Anita and the baby. Stella was sure that 
with the help of the stewardess arid her maid 
the deficiencies in Anita’s wardrobe and the 
baby’s could all be supplied. 

Gustavus was restored to his uniform, and 
Llewellyn Briggs was given a position that he 
felt suited his talents better than bear-taming. 

And only an hour and a half late, after all, 
the Alfarata* sailed away with a favoring wind, 
Anita weeping tears of joy that she was going 
to the Azores, and tears of grief that she was 
leaving Scauset, and Mezul stepping around 
jovially to the strains of the darky cook’s banjo. 


emilio’s trick 


253 


“ Me ’n’ you will always stick together, won’t 
we, Manny ?” said Gustavus, under cover of the 
music. “ Me ’n’ you and the bear — and Anita 
and the baby,” he added with a sudden noble 
enlargement of heart. 


CHAPTER XV 


THE CRUISE OF THE ALFARATA 

The Alfarata was a large schooner-yacht, 
with a carefully picked crew, Manuel was sail- 
ing-master, and Gustavus was called “ Mate 
Nickerson ” by both crew and passengers before 
they had been two days out ! 

Gustavus actually felt himself grow taller 
every time he heard it. He only wished he 
could measure himself now by the notch upon 
the wood-shed door — the notch that had seemed 
to move upward so that one never could get 
above it. 

There was a Scauset young man among the 
sailors also, although Gustavus did not know it 
until the yacht had set sail. It was Jo Fretas, 
who had been with Manuel on many trips in 
the Delight, and it was Manuel who had secured 
a place for him on the Alfarata. 

Jo was a good sailor ; since he was a Cape 

254 


THE CRUISE OF THE ALFARATA 255 


Cod Portuguese, that goes without saying, and 
the rest of the crew had been selected by the 
sailing-master, who thought he could discern 
good seamanship in the looks of a man. So 
the Alfarata’s passengers went to sea with that 
comfortable sense of security bestowed by a 
staunch ship and a trustworthy crew. 

Miss Pym, Stella’s governess, had felt some 
objections to the bear, as well as to Anita and 
the baby, but as Gustavus proudly said, the 
bear had such “ an orfle winning way ” that 
scarcely anyone could resist him. It was not 
long before Mezul was listening in the cabin to 
the strains of Stella's grand piano, and on the 
lower deck to the cook’s banjoing or Jo Fretas’ 
fiddling, with perfect impartiality. And he 
performed a new and amusing trick almost 
every day. Llewellyn Briggs declared that, as 
sick as he was of the show business, the sight 
of such a talented bear as that almost made him 
long to return to it. He said that he should 
live in hopes of “ starring it ” once with 
Mezul. 

Out from under the cold, low-lying Northern 
sky sailed the Alfarata, and bleak winds grew 
balmy, and sun rays that had seemed but lances 


256 


A CAPE COD BOY 


of the frost had now a glow that warmed one to 
the heart. The bear curled himself up upon 
the deck like a kitten, and the baby rolled and 
tumbled over him fearlessly. Sometimes Mezul 
would lift her in his great paws and shake her 
gently, while she shouted with glee. And 
although Miss Pym had shuddered at first, she 
grew to enjoy the antics of the frolicsome pair. 
And Stella, for whose health the voyage had 
been undertaken, grew so gay and rosy that her 
ill health seemed only a jest. 

And Anita, with the color growing bright in 
her tawny cheeks, longed — actually longed for 
a tambourine, the thing which she had hated 
most in the world. 

“ When the heart is light, tambourine grow 
light and play himself,” she said. 

The storms were but slight, the winds were 
mostly favoring. As they neared the Azores it 
seemed as if they were sailing endlessly upon a 
summer sea; but there is always danger for 
those who go down to the sea in ships. And 
such a calm as they were enjoying is very apt 
to be followed by a great storm. The sailing- 
master knew this, and kept watch constantly, 
with a sharp little frown ' between bis brows; 


THE CRUISE OF THE ALFARATA 257 

the sailors knew it — even Jo Fretas, whose mind 
seemed centred upon his fiddle. 

The storm came on the very day when they 
had sighted land — a low-lying, dark blue line 
upon the horizon, toward which Anita’s eyes 
and many of the sailors’ were strained with 
tearful longing ; “ the faeriest of faery lands, 
the land of home.” 

Manuel himself had a lump in his throat ; 
but sailing-masters must not let such things be 
known. Moreover, he had espied something 
upon the horizon besides that low, dark blue 
line. 

The storm had but a small beginning ; Anita 
insisted upon staying on deck, watching the 
blue line that meant home, until the dark- 
ness of night swallowed it up ; and when she 
went below, the briny drops upon her cheeks 
were chiefly from her eyes. One of the un- 
pleasant mysteries about girls, to Gustavus 
Nickerson’s mind, was that they cried when 
they were happy. 

The wind grew suddenly cold — a sighing 
wind that brought sleet. At midnight the 
storm seemed less severe than had been feared. 
The sailing-master’s brow had cleared, although 


17 


258 


A CAPE COD BOY 


the churning sea dashed foam into his face, 
and the night was so thick that the fog-horn’s 
shrill blasts were never stilled. An answering 
blast came now and then out of the darkness, at 
a secure distance. Manuel thought of another 
night of storm and darkness, on board the 
Delight, when lights had suddenly appeared, 
directly ahead of her on shore. 

A sudden light now ! But a huge shape, 
blacker than the darkness, loomed behind it, 
and a steamer’s shrill whistle pierced his ears — 
too late ! There was no time for any manoeuvre 
that could help before the huge shape struck the 
slender Alfarata a shivering, rending blow, and 
went swiftly screaming on, as if unconscious of 
the ruin she had wrought ! 

It was not certain at first that it was ruin, the 
Alfarata was so stanchly built. In smooth waters 
Manuel thought, she might have struggled to 
port, but in that tempestuous sea he knew, soon, 
that she could not last long. 

The order to lower the lifeboats was given 
quietly, and there was no panic. Miss Pym 
screamed only twice, and Stella not at all. Anita 
besought every one to take the baby to her 
grandmother in Fayal if she should be lost, and 


THE CRUISE OF THE ALFARATA 259 


Gustavus whispered, hoarsely, to Manuel, even 
while they were lowering the first boat, “ The 
bear !” 

For Mezul was too large and unwieldly for the 
crowded boats, and a dreadful fear had seized 
Gustavus. Manuel was fond of him, he knew, 
but he had always doubted a little the depth of 
Manuel’s regard for the bear. And he knew 
that this disaster would be very likely to make 
the sailors think that the bear was an unlucky 
passenger. They were full of superstitious no- 
tions, as sailors are apt to be, and some of them 
had always looked askance at the bear. They 
might think — even Manuel might think — that 
Mezul must be left to go down with the yacht. 

“ I’m goin’ when Mezul goes !” he said, hus- 
kily but firmly, while he did good service in 
helping to lower the boats. 

“ The raft ! Last of all — you and I and the 
bear,” answered Manuel, quietly. 

The raft ! Gustavus had not thought that 
any one would trust himself to that ; it was 
small — and in such a sea ! 

“ I think of him much ; there is no other 
way,” said Manuel, in answer to Gustavus’ ex- 
clamation. 


260 


A CAPE COD BOY 


Mr. Carmichael had gone, with his daughter, 
in the first boat, at Stella’s urgent entreaty, and 
with Manuel’s assurance that he could do no 
good by remaining, the sailors being orderly 
and under control. Llewellyn Briggs and Jo 
Fretas had lowered Anita and the baby, with 
Miss Pym, the stewardess, and Stella’s maid into 
the next boat, and were putting off, when back 
through the darkness came Anita’s voice : 

“ Manuel Silva, your box, I take him safe 
with me !” 

“ What’s that girl hollerin’ about a box for ?” 
said Gustavus, surlily ; for there was a pang at 
his heart, even in the terror and excitement of 
the moment. She knew something about that 
mysterious box of Manuel’s that Manuel had 
never told him, although they occupied the 
same quarters, and he knew that Manuel never 
turned in without carefully inspecting the box 
that was tucked away under his bunk. Anita 
evidently knew that it was precious; it was 
probable that she knew what was in it. He had 
confided in that Portuguese girl as he had not 
confided in his heart’s friend ! 

“ My box I keep him with me on the raft !” 
shouted Manuel, after a moment’s hesitation. 


THE CRUISE OF THE ALFARATA 


261 


“ It is heavy for the boat, with so many in it,” 
he added to Gustavus. “ But she is good girl, 
Anita, to think of it. I pray in my heart that 
she and the baby come safely to the grand- 
mother !” 

“ You’d better be prayin’ for you ’n’ me ’n’ 
the bear,” muttered Gustavus ; for, although 
Anita had done him a very good turn in re- 
storing the bear, yet it rankled that she knew 
about that box. 

Of course this was but a fleeting impression 
upon Gustavus’ mind; the night’s business was 
too heavy and too urgent to allow one to harbor 
small injuries. 

When all were gone, for Manuel would be 
the last to leave, they lowered the bear to 
the raft. If Mezul had not been docile, if 
he “ hadn’t known more’n some folks,” as 
Gustavus said, this would have been impossible 
to the two boys. As it was, it was very difficult. 
The sea broke over the Alfarata in tumbling 
billows; she strained and lurched — she shud- 
dered like some living thing in agony as she 
went down. And the raft, with its living 
freight, had but just pushed off; it seemed 
likely to be sucked into the gulf that yawned 


262 


A CAPE COB BOY 


as the yacht went down. Manuel and Gustavus 
clung to each other, and both clung to the bear, 
that whined and howled above the noise of the 
wind and storm. 

The sea had closed over the stanchly-built 
vessel, and the little raft rode the billows as yet 
safely, but seeming likely to be swamped at any 
moment. 

At first Manuel seemed scarcely to think of 
their personal safety. 

“ When one who sail vessel see him go down, 
Heaven only know , how he feel !” he said, 
solemnly. 

“ But no one has gone down with it! And 
the bear hasn’t — or the box.” (Manuel had 
taken off his coat and wrapped it around the 
precious box.) “ And it can’t be long before 
morning, and we ain’t far from land. If we 
can live till light we shall be picked up.” 
Gustavus said this hopefully. He could hope, 
since he had not been obliged to abandon Mezul. 

When one has a raft under his feet, two good 
friends beside him — even if one is only a bear — 
and a plucky Yankee heart, all is not lost. 

“ Every boat is new, best kind, and the raft,” 
said Manuel, with quiet satisfaction. “If the 


THE CRUISE OF THE ALFARATA 


263 


wind rise him no higher — ” And Manuel 
knelt on the wet and plunging raft and said a 
little prayer, simply and manfully. Gustavus 
turned away his head and inwardly murmured, 
“ Now I lay me,” getting it mixed queerly 
enough with a piece he had spoken at school 
about a boy who held the bridge in the brave 
days of old. 

They had one cruel fright ; a steamer’s rau- 
cous whistle rent the air, and it was close upon 
them ; but it passed them by ; they rode moun- 
tain-high in its wake, but were not submerged. 

A streaked blue - green dawn struggled 
through mist, but there was no longer rain or 
sleet; yet they could not see the dark blue 
line that meant land. 

“ But we are not far from land ; we cannot 
have drift far; we keep up the good heart!” 
said Manuel. And almost at that moment a 
vessel came in sight, evidently bearing down 
upon them. 

There were many people on her deck, and 
signals were made to the voyagers on the raft. 

“They have pick up our people!” cried 
Manuel, with a thankful sob in his throat, as 
the vessel drew near. “ I see them all ! — no, 


264 


A CAPE COD BOY 


not all, but I think that all are there. If no 
one drown I feel me no pain.” 

“ But you look orfle pale ! What makes you 
look so orfle pale ?” exclaimed Gustavus, scan- 
ning Manuel’s face in the dim light of the 
dawn. 

But Manuel was answering a shout from the 
vessel, and did not heed the question. The 
vessel was the Norma, bound for an American 
port. When she was near enough to fling a 
rope, there was a hesitation and a parleying. 
The boys understood from the shouts and sig- 
nals of Mr. Carmichael and the captain that 
the vessel had a heavy cargo of fruit ; that she 
was crowded, and the captain and sailors were 
superstitious. They would not take the bear. 

It was evident that Mr. Carmichael was ex- 
postulating earnestly, indignantly, with the cap- 
tain, but in vain. 

“ Portuguese sailor, and afraid of bear !” ex- 
claimed Manuel, wonderingly. “ Portuguese, 
and leave poor animal to perish !” 

“ There ain’t a Cape Codder ’mongst that 
crew, you’d better b’lieve!” cried Gustavus, 
hotly. “ Some Portergese — well, you ’n’ I know 
what Emilio Fereda is!” And then Gustavus 


THE CRUISE OF THE ALFARATA 265 


was suddenly afraid that he had wounded the 
feelings of his heart’s friend. “ There ain’t 
many like you, Manny, ’mongst any kind of 
folks.” He laid his hand on Manuel’s shoul- 
der, but Manuel shook it off with a groan. 
“ Why, Manny, you ain’t hurt?” he cried. 

A rope came Hying through the air and fell 
at the boys’ feet. 

The ship was within speaking-distance now, 
and Manuel called, firmly, 

“We come not without the bear!” 

“You’ll have to, these fellows are such sim- 
pletons !” replied Mr. Carmichael. “ There is 
no begging or hiring them ! But it is a ques- 
tion of your lives, and you must not hesitate !” 

“ You — you go, Manuel ; he ain’t your bear ! 
I’ll stick by him,” said Gustavus, manfully. 

Manuel looked about him, over the empty 
waste of waters, and toward that point of the 
horizon where the blue line of land had disap- 
peared. Then he seized the rope and flung it 
disdainfully back toward the ship. And to all 
expostulations and entreaties from the ship he 
shook his head firmly. 

“We come not without the bear ! Never fear, 
we shall be pick up !” he cried. “ He go on 


266 


A CAPE COD BOY 


towards America,” lie said, as at length the 
vessel set sail again. “ I know ; he fear his 
fruit will spoil, and he will not go back to the 
Azores. Mr. Carmichael cannot hire him. The 
wind it blow wrong ; that is why we no longer 
see the land.” 

Gustavus had a revulsion of feeling, now that 
his fear for the bear’s safety was gone, and 
homesick tears welled in his eyes as he watched 
the lessening homeward-bound sails. A low 
moan came from Manuel, and he slipped 
down senseless upon the raft at Gustavus’ 
feet. 

Then little Gustavus went wild, and waved 
and screamed frantically after the departing 
vessel. 

“You’ve left him here to die!” he shouted. 
“ Come back ; I’ll go ! Wliat’s a bear compared 
to Manuel ?” 

But Manuel opened his eyes and murmured, 
faintly ; “ It is not the heart that fail me, little 
Gustavus ; it is the arm ! When we lower the 
bear to the raft the chain become twist around 
my arm and break him !” 

“ ’N — ’n’ you never said a word !” Gustavus 
forgot that he had been Mate Nickerson and 


THE CRUISE OF THE ALFARATA 267 


burst into tears as lie gazed at Manuers left 
arm, which lay limp beside him. 

“ ’Sli ! See !” said Manuel, raising his other 
arm and jiointing across the water. 

“ A ship !” cried Gustavus. “ And it is a 
steamer !” — as a faint shrill scream came to their 
ears. “ A steamer’s crew will know better than 
to be afraid of a bear,” he added, joyfully. 

Their joy was increased when, as the little 
steamer came near, in response to their signals, 
they saw Llewellyn Briggs, Jo Fretas, and 
Anita and the baby upon the deck. They had 
been rescued from their boat an hour before, but 
Anita had refused to go below until she was as- 
sured of the safety of the Alfarata’s crew and 
passengers. 

In a few hours they were at Ponta Delgada, 
whither the little fruit steamer was bound, and 
were kindly cared for by Manuel’s warm-hearted 
countrymen. Bears were not objected to at the 
little Portuguese inn, near the water’s edge, 
where the shipwrecked sailors had found refuge; 
on the contrary, Mezul was treated like an hon- 
ored guest. Nevertheless, Gustavus had a 
grievance that made his heart sore. 

It was to Anita that Manuel had confided the 


268 


A CAPE COB BOY 


mysterious box when he found himself so feeble 
from the pain in his broken arm that he had to 
be carried from the steamer to the hotel. 

Anita had carried that box herself, although 
it was almost as large as she was and very heavy, 
letting Llewellyn Briggs carry the baby. And 
when Manuel was taken to the hospital to have 
his arm set Anita carried the box there, and 
persuaded the authorities to allow Manuel to 
have it under his bed. 

And the only explanation that Manuel gave 
of this strange proceeding was that Gustavus 
had so much to do to take care of him and the 
bear that he feared he would forget the box. 

He trusted that girl more than he trusted him 
— Gustavus ! It was probable that she knew 
what was in the box ; perhaps even Llewellyn 
Briggs knew ! Gustavus disdained to ask 
whether they knew, but he listened eagerly to 
Anita’s conversation, and one day, when he 
heard Llewellyn mention the box, he pricked 
up his ears. 

“ What’s Manuel got in that box that it’s so 
mighty precious ?” asked Llewellyn Briggs, 
curiously. 

Anita shook her head. 


THE CRUISE OF THE ALFARATA 


269 


“ He never tell me, and I never ask. He is 
my friend, and I guard it for him with my 
heart’s blood !” And Anita laid her little lean, 
brown hand dramatically on her dingy calico 
bosom. 

Gustavus suddenly seized the little lean, brown 
hand in his sturdy Yankee fist and shook it 
heartily. 

“ You’re an orfle square girl, Anita Fereda, 
’n’ I’m sorry that ever I didn’t like you !” he 
said. 

But this burst of feeling did not prevent 
Gustavus from writing as follows in his first 
letter home : 

“ We hain’t got hardly any Money nor hardly 
any does and Manny’s arm is broke in 3 plaices, 
but hees got Sumthing in a Box that i think 
liees going to make a Fortune with you can’t 
Down Manny so but what he Bobs rite Up again 
Same as he sold the litle liering for Sardeens. 
this is speled so well becos Manny is lurning me. 

“ P. s. mee and L. Briggs was going into the 
Sho bisness togather but her granmotlier is ded 
and hee maried Anita and the Baby, it is kweer 
that hee would mary a gurl when hee has ben in 
so many Circuses but i will stand By him for 
hee never need a frend more than now.” 


CHAPTER XYI 


manuel’s mysterious box 

The little Portergee lay in a hospital, in an 
Azorean port, and felt himself to be as much a 
Cape Cod Yankee as a Portergee, so persistently 
did his thoughts and his heart turn back to 
Scauset, his adopted home ; that is, when the 
pain in his arm would not permit his mind to 
dwell upon business. 

There was “ never a scrape without a way out 
of him,” he had assured his heart’s friend, Gus- 
tavus Nickerson, and Gustavus thought that 
Manuel’s way out of this scrape was in the mys- 
terious box which he had persuaded the doctor 
to allow him to keep under his cot. Gustavus 
thought that things were discouraging. 

Manuel’s heart, too, was sore at the loss of the 
Alfarata, of which he had been sailing-master. 
At home in Scauset they didn’t think much of 
“ Portergees,” and were always warning Cap’n 
270 


manuel’s mysterious box 


271 


’Siah Doane that he would live to repent of 
adopting Manuel. They had also said that it 
was foolhardy for Mr. Carmichael, the owner of 
the yacht, to engage the little Portergee, who 
was not yet nineteen, as sailing-master. And 
the yacht had gone down ! It was the result of 
a collision that could not have been avoided by 
any skill in the management of the Alfarata, yet 
it was no wonder that the sailing-master took 
the matter to heart. 

Manuel disliked to draw upon the little pile 
of savings he had left behind him with Cap’ll 
’Siah to keep the family through the hard 
winter. In fact, there was not likely to be much 
of it left, for winters were apt to be very hard 
in Scauset, and there were many mouths to feed 
in the little house on Porcupine Point, to which 
Manuel’s thoughts continually turned. 

By this time Cap’n Seba. Oakes was remind- 
ing dear old Cap’n ’Siah that it “ was resky 
business adoptin’ little Portergees,” and even 
trying to make him believe that Manuel would 
be obliged to pay damages for wrecking the 
Alfarata, or at least would be debarred from 
ever acting as sailing-master again. 

And Manuel had a dreadful dream, in which 


272 


A CAPE COD BOY 


he saw Cap’n ’Siah’s wen growing and growing, 
and Cap’ll ’Siah himself dwindling and dwin- 
dling, until the wen was all there was of him ! 

When he awoke from that dream he showed 
a weakness which made Gustavus Nickerson 
open his eyes; he wanted to have the mysteri- 
ous box, which he was allowed to keep under 
his bed, taken out and placed where he could 
see it. 

Now Gustavus Nickerson’s feelings had been 
sorely wounded by Manuel’s persistent reticence 
concerning the contents of that box. 

On board the Alfarata Manuel had kept it 
under his bunk, and looked every night to see 
that it was safe. 

And although he had not saved his clothes 
when the yacht was wrecked, he had saved that 
box ! And he had taken off his jacket to wrap 
around it when the waves broke over the raft. 

Gustavus scorned to asked a question concern- 
ing the box, but he thought that when one car- 
ried about with him anything so precious and 
so mysterious, one should confide in his heart’s 
friend. 

He had suspected at one time that Anita had 
been told what was in the box, for she had been 


manuel’s mysterious box 273 

trusted to carry it from the steamer to the land- 
ing, but Anita had disclaimed any knowledge of 
the mystery. She owned to having had a 
trembling fear when she carried the box that it 
contained fire-arms. Anita was not afraid of 
shipwrecks or wild beasts, she said with feeling, 
but she did not like things that would go off, 
which was just like Gustavus’ sister Viola. 

When Gustavus repeated that to Manuel, as 
a little hint that they would like to know what 
was in the box, Manuel laughed and said, 

“ When what is in that box go off, I hope he 
make a noise !” Then the little frown between 
his brows deepened as he added, “ But I wish 
Portuguese he do not like so well to go bare- 
feeted !” 

Now what could that mean ? That the box 
contained an explosive that would “go off” on 
the ground, or snakes that would be dangerous 
to barefooted Azoreans? Gustavus had not 
thought that there was any living thing in the 
box, for he had examined it very carefully with- 
out discovering the slightest breathing-space; 
but he remembered that his brother Ludovico 
had told him that there were torpid creatures 
that hibernated as if they were dead, and in- 


18 


274 


A CAPE COD BOY 


stinctively he drew his feet up under him one 
day as he sat on a curious little woven stool by 
Manuel’s cot in the hospital, with the box close 
beside him, sturdily shod in Yankee shoes and 
blue-yarn stockings though the feet were. 

Then his heart suddenly thrilled with the 
hope that there might be snakes, educated 
snakes, for a show, in the box. 

If only Manuel had been brought to see the 
advantages of the show business ! Gustavus 
suddenly flung his pride to the winds and asked 
a leading question. 

“ Are they educated or will they bite ?” with 
a jerk of his head towards the box. 

Manuel tried to raise himself, forgetting the 
framework in which his broken arm lay, and 
which would not let him move. 

“ Listen and I will tell you what is in the 
box,” he said. 

At that instant, while Gustavus started for- 
ward so eagerly that his tow-colored hair seemed 
to stand upright and his eyes to become as round 
as o’s, a strain of music came through the open 
window to their ears — a strangely familiar strain, 
“ Tommy, make way for your uncle,” — brassy, 
rollicking. Where had they heard it before ? 


MANUEL S MYSTERIOUS BOX 


275 


Gustavus looked out of the window. The 
hospital was very near the water. A large 
steamer, evidently partially disabled, was being 
towed to an anchorage by two vessels. 

“ The circus steamer ! Yes, sir ! Just as 
sure’s you live !” he shouted, and rushed to the 
door. He had forgotten the box. 

He had also forgotten his heart’s friend ; but 
on the threshold he turned back : “ You’ve got 
to come, Manny ! You can’t stay there when 
it’s that steamer that came near carrying us off 
to Europe. It’s those folks that offered a re- 
ward for Mezul, and said our bear wasn’t Mezul ! 
They can’t claim him now, can they ?” 

“ I think they will not pay the thousand dol- 
lars reward they have offered ; he is now so 
old, poor Mezul !” answered Manuel. “ Go, my 
heart’s friend, and do not mind me. But if 
you see the good Captain Lopez, ask him to 
come to see me.” 

Captain Lopez was the ship-master with whom 
Manuel had made his first voyage ; he had re- 
tired now witli a comfortable fortune. He had 
remembered Manuel, and had greeted him with 
warm-hearted Portuguese embraces and joyful 
tears. He had been to see him several times at 


276 


A CAPE COD BOY 


tlie hospital, and Gustavus cherished a sus- 
picion that Captain Lopez knew what there was 
in the box. 

The hospital was almost deserted ; even the 
gentle white-coifed nurse who was Manuel's at- 
tendant had slipped out to listen to the music. 

A sailor with a cut across his face raised his 
head' from a cot near to Manuel's. 

“ When there is a circus in this town mischief 
breaks loose!” he said in Portuguese. And 
Manuel looked anxiously at his box and wished 
that he could push it under his cot. 

The rollicking strains of music drew nearer, 
and joyous shouts were mingled with them. 
The light-hearted, lazy little Portuguese town 
seized eagerly upon any pretext for a holiday. 

The sailor drew himself up painfully and 
looked out of the window ; he said that for his 
part he thought nothing of circuses. 

The steamer must be badly disabled, for they 
were landing the animals ; the strange, wild, 
half-human cries came clearly to Manuel's 
ears, the hyena's laughter ringing above all 
the rest. 

Manuel's mind reverted to that night when 
he and Gustavus had been carried out of New 


Manuel’s mysterious box 


277 


York Harbor on board that very steamer — only 
last Christmas, but how long ago it seemed ! 
He knew that the circus company returned each 
spring for a summer in the States, and it was 
natural that the steamer should put into the 
Azores for repairs, yet it seemed a queer hap- 
pening that he and Gustavus should be there to 
meet it. He wondered if Gustavus would not 
be tempted to prove to them that the bear was 
really the great Mezul — and claim the reward 
of a thousand dollars. 

An hour passed and Gustavus had not re- 
turned ; but that was not strange ; neither had 
the nurse, although she was as dutiful as she was 
gentle. It was not every day in the year that 
the greatest circus in the world appeared in a 
sleepy little Portuguese port. 

There was a sudden commotion outside the 
door, and from the queer rough ambulance of 
the hospital a figure was brought in upon a 
mattress — a little, dark-skinned old man with a 
red skull-cap upon his bony head. 

Manuel recognized him at once. It was old 
Giuseppe, the animal trainer of the circus, the 
one who had scornfully flouted the idea that 
Gustavus’ bear was the great Mezul. He had 


278 


A CAPE COD BOY 


been very ill, Manuel heard the attendants say 
as they brought him in, but was now on the 
road to recovery. 

He scolded, in broken English, all the way, 
after a fashion that reminded Manuel of the 
chattering squirrels in the Scauset woods. He 
was laid uj)on a cot at the end of the corridor, 
near to Manuel’s — the hospital was not large — 
and he still continued to scold, rehearsing his 
pains and the injuries he had received from 
the rough transportation. Shortly after his 
arrival, Gustavus came hurrying in, only re- 
membering when he had almost reached Man- 
uel’s cot to subdue his heavy shoes and his 
shrill tones to the requirements of the hospital, 
where indeed the discipline was lax to an extra- 
ordinary degree, as it is apt to be among easy- 
going Southern peoples. 

“ I’ve got Mezul here !” he said, trium- 
phantly. “ They let me put him in an old kind 
of a barn — I can’t pronounce the name they 
call it — back of the great kitchen.” The hos- 
pital was composed of many small buildings, 
some old, some new, and all separate. “ It was 
that nice nurse that waits on you that made ’em 
let me. She likes a circus and she likes bears 


manuel’s mysterious box 279 


— yessir ! They had to unload that steamer ; 
couldn’t repair her without. They’ve got tents 
set up already ; goin’ to have a show to pay 
expenses. I’ve got compliment’ ries.” Gus- 
tavus drew tickets from his pocket. “ Earned ’em 
helpin’ with the animals. Rode the giraffe 
from the wharf to the tent ; rode him — yessir ! 
Shinned up him ! They thought I’d be afraid, 
but I told ’em I owned a bear — ” 

“ But it is more wise to say nothing,” warned 
Manuel, who knew before this that Gustavus 
had an indiscreet tongue. 

“ They wouldn’t think he was Mezul. I’m 
not afraid !” said Gustavus. “ Besides, I shall 
keep him locked up — if Anita does want him to 
help take care of the baby.” 

“ The bear is not lame now, and he has the 
gay heart again,” said Manuel. “ It is much 
more to be believe that he is Mezul now than 
when they have seen him.” 

“ Two compliment’ries,” repeated Gustavus, 
fingering his bits of pasteboard with a pleased 
smile. “ And I’ve a good mind to ask the nurse 
to go with me. Would you darst?” 

Manuel gently dissuaded his heart’s friend 
from this piece of gallantry. He proposed as a 


280 


A CAPE COB BOY 


substitute for it that lie should invite her to see 
Mezul perform his most remarkable tricks. 

“ But it must with caution be manage,” added 
Manuel, in a whisper, “ for — look there !” And 
he pointed towards the cot where the old trainer 
lay. 

Gustavus stepped along on tiptoe and looked 
at the old man, who had now fallen asleep, but 
continued to mutter and grumble in his dreams, 
now in Italian, now in broken English. 

“ That old Gusippy ! I looked for him on 
the wharf, but I didn’t see him ! He’s askin’ 
for water ; he said ‘ water ’ two or three times 
just like anybody ! And the nurse is lookin’ 
after a woman with a sick baby that they’re 
bringin’ up from the steamer. I’m goin’ to get 
somebody to carry him water, and don’t you be 
scairt ! I talked to the boss down to the steamer, 
’n’ he said they’d had enough of bears ; they 
didn’t want another one anyhow.” 

Gustavus went out in haste, and in a very 
short space of time along the corridor came the 
great bear, walking with dignity upon his 
hind legs, and carrying upon his nose a brim- 
ming glass of water ! 

This was the famous trick that Giuseppe 



THE BEAR BENT FORWARD 







MANUEL S MYSTERIOUS BOX 


281 


had once declared only the great Mezul could 
do. 

The old man opened his eyes and gazed at 
the bear. Gustavus, crouched at the foot of the 
cot, had given it a little shake to awaken him ; 
one did not dare to whoop naturally in the 
hospital. 

Giuseppe raised himself, gasping, upon his 
little, lean elbow. The bear bent forward so 
gently and so steadily that the water was not 
spilled ! But when the old man had it in his 
hand it would have been spilled if Gustavus had 
not sprung to the rescue. He was trembling 
with excitement, and tears were running down 
his seamy cheeks. 

“ It is Mezul — the great Mezul !” he cried, in 
a shrill, high-pitched voice. “ I train him 
myself! I know him in a thousand bears !” 
As Gustavus took the glass from his hand he 
grasped the bear’s great paw. Mezul bent his 
head and licked the little trembling brown hand, 
and then the wrinkled face of the old trainer. 

“ There were boys last winter in New York — 
rascals of Americans — that tried to deceive me 
— me that have train the great Mezul myself ! 
That have teach him so he win decorations all 


282 


A CAPE COB BOY 


over the world !” Suddenly the old man raised 
himself again, and narrowed his faded eyes to 
peer curiously at Gustavus. “ How you come 
by the bear ?” he demanded. 

Gustavus was glad that the nurse came in at 
that moment, followed by a male nurse. The 
old man lay back upon his pillows, and began 
to rehearse his grievances, but when Gustavus 
placed the empty glass upon the bear’s nose, and 
Mezul went out of the corridor with backward 
glances, Giuseppe chuckled and shouted bravo, 
and called for admiration from every beholder. 

“ Now see what you have do,” said Manuel, 
severely. “ He will make them claim the 
bear.” 

Gustavus thrust his fingers through his tow 
hair until it stood upright above his freckled 
forehead. 

“ I’m some smarter’n what I was,” he said. 
“ I guess I can manage.” 

And Manuel, looking after him as he walked 
away, murmured, almost sadly, 

“ He have outgrown himself, the little Gus- 
tavus.” 

Gustavus sat often by Giuseppe’s bedside 
while Captain Lopez visited Manuel. The latter 


manuel’s mysterious box 


283 


two friends had much confidential discourse, and 
Gustavus was convinced that the Captain knew 
what was in the box. He confided to the old 
trainer that there was a secret about that box — 
Gustavus always did have an indiscreet tongue, 
but he had reason to believe that there were 
educated snakes in it — a great attraction for a 
show. 

Manuel didn’t seem to like the show business, 
but he was of the kind that if one thing fails, 
keep another to fall back upon. 

Gustavus parried the old trainer’s questions 
about the bear very neatly, but about the box 
he was confidential. 

And it happened that when Giuseppe had 
been able for about a week to sit up, both 
he and the box were one evening found to be 
missing. 

Manuel was then no longer obliged to lie in 
bed, and he was at the other side of the room, 
telling stories to the Portuguese sailor, while 
Gustavus was talking to the pleasant little nurse. 
And the old trainer took advantage of this state 
of things to draw the box out from under Man- 
uel’s cot, and to unfasten the door of Mezul’s 
lodgings, and escape with both bear and box. 


284 


A CAPE COD BOY 


Manuel turned pale and trembled — the first 
time Gustavus had ever seen him do that. 

They ran out of the house, Manuel almost 
unconscious of the pain that the jar of running 
gave to his arm, and not far away, from under 
the shadow of a yam-tree that arose stately in 
the moonlight, there came a sudden, sharp cry 
of pain. 

“ The knitting-machine ! He open the box 
and the needles catch him. Oh, I hope he shall 
not spoil it! There is great fortune for the 
good Asher Baker, for me, for all ! Captain 
Lopez he get for me Portuguese patent. I sell him 
outright. There is much money for Asher 
Baker. There is some for me. I go not penni- 
less home to Scauset. No more stockings shall 
be import from Europe, from America ; no more 
Portuguese shall be barefeet.” 

The old trainer’s hand was badly lacerated. 
He had found the box very heavy, and had de- 
termined to see whether its contents were really 
valuable before carrying it farther. 

Gustavus was not going to tell about the edu- 
cated snakes — not just then, anyway — but in his 
wrath and pain Giuseppe revealed the confiden - 
tial disclosure that Gustavus had made to him. 


manuel’s mystekious box 


285 


When a boy’s heart’s friend laughs at him, 
as Manuel laughed at Gustavus, perhaps a veil 
should be drawn over the boy’s feelings. 

“ I should have told you what was in the box, 
only I fear the plan fail me to work him. Por- 
tuguese he love so well to be barefeet,” ex- 
plained Manuel, consolingly, with his arm 
around Gustavus’ shouldar. 

By that time old Giuseppe was again in his 
cot at the hospital, with his wounded hand 
bandaged and his disposition somewhat subdued 
by pain and penitence. And Mezul was stand- 
ing on his hind legs beside the cot on which 
Manuel was sitting, begging for pardon by the 
wagging of his huge paws. 

“ I w’n’t much afraid about the bear,” said 
Gustavus, “ because I — I’ve made a little ar- 
rangement with the comp’ny.” Gustavus tried 
to dig his heel into the hospital floor in his em- 
barrassment, as if it were the Scauset sand. He 
felt as if he ought to have asked Manuel’s ad- 
vice about this important arrangement, but that 
secrecy of Manuel’s about the box had rankled 
in his mind. “They ain’t goin’ to try to claim 
the bear ; they know he’s pretty old, and I 
wouldn’t let anybody have him — no, sir, not for 


286 


A CAPE COD BOY 


anything in this world.” Gustavus put his arm 
around the bear’s neck, and Mezul stopped beg- 
ging and joyfully licked the boy’s face. 

“ But they’ve offered Mezul an engagement — 
a starrin’ tour of the States ! Yessir ! And 
I’m goin’, too. Maybe I sha’n’t like the show 
business, but since we lost that tunny I’ve 
known I should never be satisfied till I tried it. 
But — but I don’t know how I shall stand it to go 
off with the comp’ny next week, if you’re goin’ 
to stay here.” 

“ I go, too. Scauset I adopt him,” said Man- 
uel, firmly. “ I build up great business in 
Scauset. Scauset he grow, and the wen of the 
good Cap’n ’Siali he disapjiear. And you and 
I, we be heart’s friends always.” Manuel seized 
him about the neck and embraced him fer- 
vently. Gustavus was responsive inwardly, but 
shamefaced outwardly, for those are not the 
ways of Cape Cod boys. He turned his head 
away, and performed again the act of burrowing 
into the Scauset sand. But the voice was gruff 
and broken in which he said : 

“ I’ve made ’em ’gree to have a show there. 
Scauset will see for once a stavin’ old circus.” 


CHAPTER XVII 


ANOTHER SCRAPE 

Homeward bound on the great circus steamer! 
A queer place it was, with much gayety and 
much grumbling, with the hyenas screaming 
loud enough to drown the band, while the bear 
quarreled with the old elephant about taking 
care of Anita’s baby sister. There was an 
ourang-outang that wanted to take care of the 
baby, too, but Anita would not allow it. She 
wasn’t really afraid, she said, having traveled 
with more than one show, and learned how much 
goodness and gentleness there sometimes is in 
animals that are called wild ; but she wasn’t 
very well acquainted with ourang-outangs. 

The baby was very popular on board the 
steamer, where they were accustomed to almost 
everything that was good to pet and to make 
things lively except a baby ; and Anita had her 
hands full to keep the baby safe and unspoiled. 

287 


288 


A CAPE COD BOY 


The Fat Lady was especially fond of her, and 
Anita having her prejudices, as we are all likely 
to, did not like fat ladies. 

She said they were seldom genuine ; they 
were often made partly of India-rubber and 
blown up like balloons to look as if they were 
fat. 

She didn’t think that a person like that was 
altogether fit to hold the baby. The Fat Lady 
was very pleasant and smiling, but if you once 
begin to suspect that smiles are all India-rubber, 
why you can’t like them any more ; that was 
what Anita said. 

But for the sake of being good-natured, as 
one naturally wished to be in such a very pleas- 
ant company, she did allow the Fat Lady, occa- 
sionally, to take the baby in her arms. 

And from that good nature on Anita’s part 
came new trouble to Manuel and Gustavus just 
when all their affairs seemed so happy and pros- 
perous. Ups and downs are the way of the world ; 
it sometimes seems as if mischance were waiting 
around every corner. It didn’t need Cap’n 
Seba Oakes, who had been around the world 
and had a wooden leg, to tell the boys that. 

■ ‘ The stout heart, you must have him always,” 


ANOTHER SCRAPE 


289 


Manuel said privately to Gustavus, who had 
permitted himself to cry and to say that a fel- 
low might as well stay at home and chop wood 
for the kitchen stove as to try to make a man of 
himself out in the world. 

“ But what is a fellow to do ?” Gustavus had 
demanded, swallowing hard. 

“ What is right, when he have think up what 
he is ! What is right and will bring him out of 
the scrape,” answered Manuel, promptly. 

In this scrape it was Manuel who was the 
chief sufferer, but Gustavus was his heart’s 
friend, and he still thought of him as small and 
needing a protector. 

Anita had allowed the Fat Lady to hold the 
baby. She sat on the deck in the sunshine with 
the baby on her knee. She was a year-and-a- 
lialf-old baby, now, although still very small, 
and she could say little words and pat people’s 
cheeks and laugh bewitchingly. 

The Fat Lady was called Madame Lollo- 
copski, when any one really tried to pronounce 
her name. She preferred to have it shortened 
to Lollo, and the Skeleton Man, who was be- 
lieved to be in love with her, always called her 
Lollo. 


19 


290 


A CAPE COD BOY 


Every one liked her, and when she sang, in 
a voice as thin as she was fat, and almost always 
wheezy with a cold, no one would let her know 
that she did not sing beautifully. 

She sang now to the baby, “ Hush a bye, baby, 
upon the tree top,” and the Skeleton Man, who 
was walking to and fro, clad in a fur overcoat, 
although the day was mild, because he could 
always feel the wind blow through his bones, 
laid his hand on his heart to show how the 
music affected him, and the sick kangaroo, whose 
head lay upon the folds of the Fat Lady’s dress, 
whined a low accompaniment to the song. 

All the invalids were on deck to-day, includ- 
ing old Giuseppe, the bear-trainer, and the 
ourang-outang that had taken such a fancy to 
the baby. He was a young ourang-outang, of a 
species that had never before been imported. 
He had lost flesh ever since he had been shipped 
at Liverpool, and he wailed and wept like a 
person in distress. The ship’s doctor thought 
that he was only homesick, but that it was 
doubtful whether he would live. An ourang- 
outang was always a great risk, the keeper said, 
and the creature was most carefully fed and 
tended. 


ANOTHER SCRAPE 


291 


He sat, like a human creature, upon a coil of 
rope, his lean, hairy elbows upon his knees, and 
his chin resting upon his queer, skinny paws. 

The Fat Lady wished to go to her state-room 
for a handkerchief, and there was no one at 
hand to take the baby while she was gone. 
Anita was showing the cook how to make light 
dumplings, as Caddy had taught her. It is a 
rare accomplishment, as every one knows, but 
on Cape Cod they make light dumplings just as 
easily as heavy ones are made elsewhere ! And 
Anita wished to show her gratitude to the cook 
for very kindly making some little delicacies for 
the baby when it was ill. While the Fat Lady 
was sitting in her own great chair on the deck 
in the sunshine, it seemed safe to leave the baby 
with her. The baby liked her ample lap and 
the thin, high-keyed voice in which she sang 
was apt to make her sleepy. 

The Fat Lady, when she felt obliged to go for 
her handkerchief, held the baby out to the Skel- 
eton Man, who was nothing loth to take her. But 
the baby had* prejudices or perhaps the sudden 
contrast struck her painfully, for she screamed 
and kicked and would not go. 

It was then that the melancholy ourang- 


292 


A CAPE COD BOY 


outang, sitting upon the coil of rope, held out 
his arms, and the baby tried to spring into 
them, her screams changing to cheerful goo- 
goos. She had been born in a circus, and her 
earliest friends had been of the hairy tribes. 

After tbe family left the circus she had been 
entrusted to the care of the great bear, Mezul, 
many times before she could toddle. Perhaps 
it was not to be wondered at that, when this 
strange, tall creature held out his arms she 
should haye preferred a refuge in the soft, furry 
clasp to which she was accustomed. 

“La! he wouldn’t hurt her any more than I 
would,” said the Fat Lady, easily, when the 
Skeleton Man remonstrated. 

“ And it will make the poor homesick crea- 
ture feel better to cuddle her a little.” 

So, while the Fat Lady slowly and laboriously 
descended to her stateroom, and Anita made 
dumplings for the cook, the homesick ourang- 
outang cuddled the baby in a most motherly 
fashion. 

The Fat Lady was absent longer than she 
meant to be. Her movements were necessarily 
slow, and her handkerchief — -just the one she 
wanted — was mislaid. 


ANOTHER SCRAPE 


293 


The ourang-outang decided to promenade the 
deck with the baby in his arms. And just as 
he set out, Gustavus appeared on deck with 
Mezul. There had been rough weather, and 
the boy and the bear had both been sea-sick, 
and had come up now for a breath of fresh air. 

The baby began to cry, perhaps realizing, 
suddenly, that her nurse was not quite like the 
furry ones to which she was accustomed ; per- 
haps with a longing for her old protector, 
Mezul. 

When the bear heard the cry he rushed at 
the ourang-outang, mad with rage. The baby, 
whose natural protector he was, had become the 
prey of this strange beast — new even to his 
varied experience. 

This was evidently the way in which the situ- 
ation appeared to poor MezuFs dull, bear brain. 
“ There is always bear in bear,” as the old say- 
ing runs, and now, for the first time, Gustavus 
found bear in gentle old Mezul. The bear was 
old and heavy and the ourang-outang was young 
and nimble. But the bear dragged Gustavus, 
who kept a firm hold of his collar, and the boy’s 
strength was wholly ineffectual to stop or hinder 
him. There was a wild race up and down the 


294 


A CAPE COB BOY 


deck. Over and over again tlie ourang-outang’s 
great agility saved him from the bear’s furious 
grasp. 

Twice when brought to bay he leaped upon 
the railing and, still holding the screaming baby, 
tight, prepared to leap into the ocean. 

Instead of leaping he lowered himself to the 
bottom of the railing and hung down over the 
vessel’s side, holding on by one skinny arm 
while he clutched the baby with the other. 

The fat lady had hysterics and then fainted, 
and Anita screamed. 

But the ourang-outang drew himself safely 
up again. Some of the deck hands had rushed 
upon the bear and secured him, but he escaped 
them and the wild race began again. 

It was then that Manuel appeared on deck 
with Llewellyn Briggs’ pistol. He held it to 
Mezul’s head, shouting to him, at the same time, 
in his native Portuguese, the tongue which he 
always used with the bear. Subdued, either 
by the pistol or by the familiar voice, or ex- 
hausted by his unaccustomed activity, Mezul 
dropped back submissively and licked Manuel’s 
hand, his red eyes losing their savage glare. 

But the danger was not over ; Anita’s wild 


ANOTHER SCRAPE 


295 


scream warned Manuel of that. The ourang- 
outang was making for the bowsprit again. 
The- chase had excited him to frenzy. There 
was a fiendish, defiant grin upon his face and lie 
* held the baby aloft as if to fling her into the 
sea. 

Manuel leveled the pistol and fired at him 
without an instant’s hesitation. 

He had had some practice with that pistol of 
Llewellyn’s at Porta Delgada. And he was “ a 
resky little Portergee had not Cap’n ’Siah 
said so many a time. But what was to be 
done ? 

The ourang-outang was holding the baby 
aloft ; Manuel knew that lie must not hit her, 
but to fire seemed the only chance to save her. 
The creature stood still, then slowly swayed 
and fell upon the deck. He still held the 
baby fast and there was an ugly red stain 
upon her white dress where it had swept across 
his breast. 

Anita snatched the baby up with hysterical 
sobs. There was a murmur of relief among the 
spectators as the tense strain relaxed. But 
Manuel knelt beside the poor wounded beast 
whose queerly human face was contracted with 


296 


A CAPE COB BOY 


pain and who moaned like a stricken man. His 
features were set, and a strange, gray pallor had 
overspread his face. ♦ 

At this moment the proprietor of the circus 
appeared. He had slept in his berth all 
through the tumult, having been up nearly all 
the night before. 

One of his employees had aroused him and 
now he was fiercely angry at what he called the 
stuj)idity that had caused the death of the 
ourang-outang. 

It was the bear’s fault ; everyone agreed that 
it was all the bear’s fault. Why had not 
Manuel shot the bear? There were bears 
enough ! An old trick bear, stiff in all his 
joints, was of but little use ; but the ourang- 
outang, the only one of his kind that had ever 
been imported, was very valuable. 

There was a murmur of indignation that 
Manuel should be blamed. He had taken, as it 
seemed to every one, the only way to save the 
baby’s life. The ourang-outang might even 
have hung over the vessel’s side with her again 
and brought her safely back, but he seemed to 
have become suddenly maddened and reckless. 
Manuel had taken the one way and all the 


another scrape 


297 


spectators were disposed to regard him as a 
hero. 

“ It would have been right to shoot the bear 
rather than the poor, big monkey,” said Man- 
uel, “ for he was maddened by the bear. It is 
not for justice, but to save Anita’s baby that I 
shoot !” 

The crowd applauded Manuel ; the circus 
performers and the seamen all cheered. Anita 
took a fold of bis rough jacket between her 
thumb and finger and kissed it, and the Fat 
Lady would have fallen upon his neck if she 
had not been dissuaded by the Skeleton Man. 

The circus proprietor tried to curb his anger, 
since it was not popular. He was accustomed 
to trying to be popular, and he seldom forgot 
himself, even among his employees, which was 
fortunate for them. But he thought any one of 
any sense must see that since Manuel had shot 
the ourang-outang he must pay for him. 

There were people who thought he might 
have waited until the poor beast had breathed 
his last and until the glow of enthusiasm over 
Manuel’s rescue of the baby had cooled. But 
the circus proprietor, although he wished to be 
popular, could not help being business-like. It 


298 


A CAPE COD BOY 


was to him only a business misfortune that the 
ourang-outang had been shot. 

That Portuguese girl, Llewellyn Briggs’ 
wife, should have taken care of her baby ! 
The circus proprietor probably would not have 
admitted it even to himself but what he 
really thought was that it had cost more to 
protect the baby than the baby was worth ! 
“ I paid five hundred dollars for that ourang- 
outang,” he said, “and he would have been 
worth twenty-five hundred in a year or two.” 

“ If you could have made him live,” said one 
of the trainers. “ It’s always a great risk to 
import an ourang-outang.” 

“Then I suppose I ought to be willing to 
have him shot !” said the circus proprietor, on 
the verge of losing his temper. “ You can give 
me your bear in payment,” he added, turning 
to Manuel. “ He is not worth half of five hun- 
dred dollars, but — ” 

“ But he is not my bear,” Manuel spoke, 
quietly, as he raised himself from the side of 
the suffering animal that he had shot, but he 
was so white and there was so sharp a line 
between his brows that he scarcely looked like 
Manuel, at all. Even in his anger and dismay 


ANOTHER SCRAPE 


299 


Gustavus was vaguely conscious of it. Manuel 
was always getting into scrapes; lie looked as 
if he felt that this was the very worst one of 

all. 

In truth, Manuel had a sympathetic nature 
and a tender heart, as it is hoped that every 
one has discovered who has read his story. His 
heart was sore over the suffering that he had 
caused. He had not, as yet, thought of the 
practical consequences. When they came home 
to him, with the circus proprietor’s demand, 
his first feeling was only a confused surprise. 
He did not at first realize that he was in another 
of the scrapes that continually kept his facul- 
ties on the alert. 

“ Of course he isn’t his bear !” blurted forth 
Gustavus. “ He has only just helped to get him 
— him and me and the bear being old friends — 
and I’m going to pay him right away as soon as 
I can.” 

The proprietor cast a contemptuous half- 
glance upon Gustavus. “ You paid for the bear 
and he is your property,” he said to Manuel. 
“ If there is any difficulty about the matter I 
shall attach him. Legal measures will cost you 
something more than the bear !” 


300 


A CAPE COi) BOY 


Manuel’s thin, white face reddened and his 
eyes flashed. 

“ If it is debt of honor I pay him,” he said, 
firmly. “ I have to think a while. I think 
now only of the big monkey that I have made 
to suffer. I cannot be sorry that I shoot be- 
cause of the baby, but that the big monkey 
should be in pain I lament him. If it is right, 
I pay you all he cost — but I pay never with the 
bear of my heart’s friend !” 

There was a little murmur of applause. The 
show people were always ready with cheers or 
hisses. The Fat Lady even threw her arms 
around Manuel’s neck, greatly to his embarrass- 
ment. 

“ I’m glad you’re so rich that you can pay 
for the mischief you do,” said the proprietor, 
sarcastically. 

“ Yes, I pay him, if I think it right,” said 
Manuel stoutly — as stoutly as if his heart had 
not gone down — down like a lump at the thought 
of what this would mean to him. Five hundred 
dollars was the sum that he had received for 
his share of Asher Baker’s patent, sold at the 
Azores. With that money he had expected to 
bring joy to the little house at the Point, to 


ANOTHER SCRAPE 


301 


help on Scauset’s new prosperity and prove that, 
although mischances had befallen him, he was 
not a good-for-nothing little Portergee as Cap’ll 
Seba Oakes had always declared him to be. 

Five hundred dollars was a great deal of 
money at Porcupine Point, (as every one knows, 
the value of money is at once one of the most 
fixed and one of the most variable things in 
the world). And Manuel had meant to have 
a little share in Asher Baker’s manufacturing. 
It was very evident that it would be wiser to 
use than to sell the patent in America, and 
Manuel had meant to help Scauset with more 
booms than one. 

The ship’s doctor was examining the ourang- 
outang’s wound. He shook his head over it de- 
cidedly. The ball was in a bad place he said, it 
might be extracted but it was doubtful whether 
the animal would survive the operation. If he 
should do so it would probably be only to linger 
in a hopeless weakness for a longer or shorter 
23eriod. 

“ Throw him overboard !” ordered the pro- 
prietor, after only a moment’s reflection. “ I’m 
not going to waste time on a beast with a bullet- 
hole through his lungs.” 


302 


A CAPE COD BOY 


One of the sailors produced a piece of sail- 
cloth to wrap the poor beast in and a weight to 
attach to the body. The ourang-outang shud- 
dered and uttered an almost human cry, as if 
he understood. 

“Wait!” Manuel’s dark, thin face was all 
aflame. “ If I buy him he is mine. He shall 
not be throw to the sea ! It is as if the good 
God have made him for a man.” 

“ You ought to have thought of that be- 
fore you shot him,” said the proprietor, 
sharply. 

“ I think only of the baby, then,” said 
Manuel, slowly. “ All seem like the will of the 
good God ; I cannot tell to blame myself or not ! 
But I pay for the big monkey. Perhaps in the 
law I should not pay. It may be that the 
great judges would not make me. But I pay, 
and the big monkey he is mine and I take him 
with me to my own quarters.” 

The proprietor asked scornfully if he thought 
he was going to make a great “ spec.” out of 
him, and insisted for a while that the poor beast 
should be thrown overboard. But when he 
found that Manuel really had the money and 
meant to pay for the ourang-outang he made no 


ANOTHER SCRAPE 


303 


further objections to haying him taken below 
where Manuel could care for him. 

Manuel gave up his own berth to the wounded 
creature and Gustavus helped to nurse him. It 
was Gustavus’ private opinion that this was an 
unnecessary scrape of Manuel’s ; but he had 
behaved generously about the bear. 

The least one could do was to help take care 
of the ourang-outang until he died, which prob- 
ably would not be long. The doctor kindly 
extracted the bullet and the ourang-outang, 
instead of dying under the operation, had a 
fever, like a person, after it was over. 

It was a very repulsive, skeleton-like crea- 
ture that was landed at New York, and with 
which the Scauset party traveled home, and for 
whose difficult transportation Manuel had to 
spend almost his last cent. 

To go home penniless, and bringing so very 
queer a guest, was bitterly humiliating to the 
little Portergee, but he could not rid himself of 
the impression that the good God had made 
the “big monkey ” for a man. There had been 
nothing to do but to save the baby ; there was 
nothing now to do but to take care of the 
ourang-outang, But what would dear, long- 


304 


A CAPE COD BOY 


suffering Caddy say about having an ourang- 
outang in the wood-shed chamber ? She had 
borne with the bear even when he had carried 
off her preserves ; she had been the very soul of 
kindness to Anita and the baby, even to that 
scamp of Emilio. 

“ But I’m sure she’ll draw the line at ourang- 
outangs !” said Gustavus, who had a prophetic 
soul and but little faith in girls. 

He said that he felt as if it were “ mean ” of 
him to leave Manuel to go home alone with the 
ourang-outang ; he would like to stand up for 
him just as he had stood up for Llewellyn 
Briggs when he married Anita and the baby, 
and to help him to take care of the ourang- 
outang as he (Manuel) had helped him to take 
care of the bear. But Manuel could see how it 
was, he said ; this starring tour was the oppor- 
tunity of a lifetime for him, and a great chance 
for the bear. Besides, Mezul couldn’t get along 
with the ourang-outang. They had not become 
reconciled since that never-to-be-forgotten day 
when the bear had resented his having the 
baby in charge and the poor beast had been 
shot. It had been necessary to exercise great 
care to keep them apart on shipboard. It was, 


ANOTHER SCRAPE 


305 


perhaps, just as well on that account that the 
bear was not going home to Scauset. 

“ I’ll tell you what you can do with him when 
he dies !” This was Gustavus’ parting encour- 
agement to Manuel. “ You can have him 
stuffed and sell him to the Natural History 
Society in Boston ! He’s a rare one ; you can 
see that he is ; and you’ll get a lot for him. 
Now, don’t you be so taken up with Asher 
Baker’s knitting machine that you don’t think 
of what you can get out of that ourang- 
outang !” 

Manuel was taken up with Asher Baker’s 
patent, and he would never realize the possible 
profits or the delights of the show business. 
But he had a strong liking for animals. He 
had become attached to the ourang-outang, a 
docile and gentle creature, in his weakness, and 
was making every effort to save his life, with 
very little thought of practical gain. 

Caddy was dismayed. She had become ac- 
customed to a bear, but she was afraid of this 
strange creature that looked so human and yet 
so wild. She did not scream when Manuel led 
him into the house, as Mrs. Cyrus Deuce would 
have done, but she said she was afraid that she 
20 


306 


A CAPE COD BOY 


couldn’t sleep a wink if he were in the wood- 
shed chamber. 

Manuel lodged him in Asher Baker’s shop, 
and when Caddy had been down there twice 
to see him, and had tried to get acquainted with 
him, as Manuel begged her to do, she said she 
thought he was “ really nice,” and she should 
like to have him in the wood-shed chamber! 

The Scauset air or kindly care seemed to have 
a wonderful effect upon the ourang outang. He 
walked all over the house soon, and brought 
wood and water and helped about Caddy’s little 
garden patch, and the neighbors began to call 
him Caddy’s “ hired girl.” When Cap’n Seba 
Oakes happened to come along one morning 
before breakfast and found the ourang-outang 
turning Caddy’s flapjacks he took to the woods 
as fast as his wooden leg would carry him ! 

He said it “ appeared to him as if that little 
Portergee had dealins’ with the powers of dark- 
ness, and could make ’em do just as he was 
a-mind to.” 

The ourang-outang had a very light and care- 
ful diet, and a new medicine that Gustavus had 
got from an animal trainer and sent home. But 
he wanted Caddy’s flapjacks and clam fritters, 


ANOTHER SCRAPE 


307 


and one day Caddy let him have some; he 
seemed so hungry, just like a boy, she said. 
After that there was no more “ light diet ” ! He 
ate “ just like anybody else,” as Manuel said, and 
he grew and grew. By the time the stocking 
factory was built he had to stoop his head to get 
in at the door ! He was growing very strong and 
a little two high-spirited — or so people thought 
when he seized Grandsir Fretas’ tall hat and 
carpetbag, and with the hat on his head and the 
bag in his hand went into the Fleetwell railroad 
station where people were waiting for the train ! 
Manuel felt moved to ask the advice of his 
heart’s friend. When it was a question of ani- 
mals and shows Gustavus had superior knowl- 
edge. 

Manuel knew that the ourang-outang must 
be sold, and that lie could make a “ spec.” on 
him, as the circus proprietor had sarcastically 
suggested, when it seemed impossible that the 
poor beast could live. 

“ That man he shall not have him whatever 
he give, for he have not the heart kind,” he 
wrote to Gustavus. Gustavus had discovered 
for himself by this time that the proprietor of 
the Royal Transatlantic Exhibition had not 


308 


A CAPE COD BOY 


“ the heart kind,” either for boys or hears. He 
had found an opportunity for the bear in another 
show. It was the circus that Llewellyn Briggs 
had left at Bockton. It was in the hands of a 
new proprietor with money. The Fat Lady had 
joined it, and spoke of it in the highest terms 
of praise. But Mezul did not like shows, Gusta- 
vus wrote, and, strange to say, Gustayus had 
found that he himself did not like them either ! 

“ Shows ain’t what they’re cracked up to be,” 
he wrote to Manuel. “ Me and the Bear are 
fellows that like a home. Knockin’ ’round 
makes us both cros and Scauset is better than 
Anny Other Plaice. 4 It is Hoam if thare is not 
Anny Boom for me in the boom Perhaps L. 
Briggs will let me go coasting with him !” 

The Boyal Transatlantic Circus man came to 
Scauset himself to see the outrang-outang and 
offered Manuel five times as much as he had jiaid 
for him. But Manuel preferred to sell him to 
the Fat Lady’s circus for only two thousand 
dollars. He knew he would be well-treated 
there. The Fat Lady said that she herself 
would look after him, and she had a very kind 
heart. Gustavus was not able to say that she 
might not be partly made of India-rubber, but 


ANOTHER SCRAPE 


309 


lie knew that lier heart was in the right place. 
Some people thought that Manuel had .been 
foolish not to get all that he could for the 
ourang-outang. 

“ That little Portergee of yourn has gone 
plumb crazy, hain’t he ?” demanded Cap’n Seba 
Oakes, hobbling so fast towards the fence upon 
which Cap’n ’Siali was leaning, that the sand 
flew from beneath his wooden ieg. “ Throwin’ 
away five hundred dollars !” 

“ I expect there’s things that ’pear to be 
thro wed away when they ain’t.” Cap’n ’Siah 
took his pipe from his mouth and spoke delib- 
erately. “ That ourang-outang was a terrible 
sight like a human cretur’, and Manny he is a 
tender-hearted little Portergee.” 

Cap’n Seba said, before he stumped off again, 
that he “ hoped Manny wouldn’t squander all of 
that two thousand dollars before he had bought 
Grandsir Fretas a new tall hat.” 

Caddy said that for her part, she was prouder 
of Manuel than she ever had been before, and 
that was saying a great deal. 

Caddy had her piazza, that summer, and that 
was not all. The shabby old house on the Point 
was made over into such a picturesque, pretty 


310 


A CAPE COD BOY 


cottage that people were always to be seen look- 
ing at it through their glasses when the steamer 
went by. 

Llewellyn Briggs and Anita and the baby 
had a nice little house farther along on the 
Striped Marsh Road, and Llewellyn had hired 
the Delight for a coaster. Llewellyn said that 
the show business kind of mixed a man up in 
his ideas ; he had never felt quite sure whether 
he was a man or a beast since he crawled 
along inside a stuffed crocodile, making believe 
the creature was alive. So he wanted no more 
shows, and Anita was “ home girl ” as she had 
longed to be. 

Gustavus and the bear returned to Scauset on 
the very day when the great stocking manu- 
factory, built on the edge of the Striped Marsh, 
just where Asher Baker’s cranberries were 
“ trompled ” down, was finished. 

There was a neighborhood party to celebrate 
the factory’s completion, and the inauguration 
of the new firm of Baker & Silva. A neigh- 
borhood party it was called, but people came 
from Kingstown and Fleetwell and Tooraloo, 
and all up and down the Cape. Scauset’s 
boom meant good to every one and every one 


ANOTHER SCRAPE 


311 


agreed with Cap’n ’Siah, who was joyful almost 
to tears, that Manuel was “ the beatermost little 
Portergee” — although Cap’n Seba did qualify 
his agreement by saying : “ It beat all that he 
hadn’t been ate up by wild beasts, or drownded, 
or something, when he was so resky.” 

Anita sang and the bear displayed all his 
tricks and was in great glee at the home- 
coming. 

The very next day 'Gustavus went into Jude 
Atwood’s store as clerk. He said if Scauset 
was good enough for Manuel it was for him. 
And bye-and-bye there was going to be a chance 
for him to work up into the business of Baker 
& Silva. 

If the little Portergee ever longs for the 
“road of the bold” and for the stirring adven- 
tures in which his heart naturally delights, he is 
quite consoled for all that he has missed by the 
reflection that he has brought great happiness to 
the dear ones who have become as his own people, 
and that the making of the little hamlet, upon 
whose sands he was tossed up, into a large and 
prosperous town is as fine an adventure as he 
could have. 

“ East, West, hame’s best.” 






























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STORIES FOR GIRLS 


'The Ferry cMaid of the Chattahoochee 

By c/lnnie 8M. 'Barnes Illustrated by Ida Waugh 

An heroic little Georgia girl, in her father’s extremity, takes 
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A cMaid of the First Century 

By Lucy Foster cMadison Illustrated by Ida Waugh 

A little maid of Palestine goes in search of her father, who 
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cMy Lady Barefoot 

By cMrs. Evelyn 'Raymond Illustrated by Ida Waugh 

A beautifully told story of the trials of a little backwoods girl 
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Dorothy 'Day 

c By Julie cM. Lippmann Illustrated by Ida Waugh 

This is a most interesting story of a bright and spirited young 
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c Miss Wildfire 

'Ey Julie cM. Lippmann Illustrated by Ida Waugh 

The story of a governess’ attempt to win the love and confi- 
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cAn Odd Little Lass 

*By Jessie E. Wright Illustrated by Ida Waugh 

This is a story of the regeneration of a little street waif. She 
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in interesting incident. 

“ The story is an intensely interesting one, and abounds in 
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Ohio. 


3 


‘ Two Wyoming Girls 

By cMrs. Carrie L. cMarsball Illustrated by Idd Waugh 

Two girls, thrown upon their own resources, are obliged to 
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The Girl ^Ranchers 

By cMrs. Carrie L. cMarsball Illustrated by Ida Waugh 

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cAn Every-Day Heroine 

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Her College 'Days 

*By cMrs. Clarke Johnson Illustrated By Ida Waugh 

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STORIES FOR DOYS 


Uncrowning a King 

c By Edward S. Ellis , c/1* cM. Illustrated by J. Steeple Davis 

A tale of the Indian war waged by King Philip in 1675. The 
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Hhe Young Gold Seekers 

<By Edward S* Ellis , cA. £M. Illustrated by F. cA. Carter 

A thrilling account of the experiences of two boys during a 
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5 


T rue to His Trust 

'Ey Edward S. Ellis , cA. cM. Illustrated by J. Steeple Eavis 

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which happiness and success in life are possible. 

Comrades True 

'Ey Edward S. Ellis, cA. cM. Illustrated 

In following the career of two friends from youth to manhood, 
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Milwaukee, Wis. 

< -Among the Esquimaux 

Ey Edward S. Ellis, cA. cM. Illustrated 

The scenes of this story are laid in the Arctic region, the cen- 
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land ; go on a hunting expedition, have a number of stirring 
adventures, but ultimately reach home safe and sound. 

“ A capital and instructive book for boys.” — Post , Boston, 
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6 . 


'The Campers Out 

Ey Edward S. Ellis , c/1. cM. Illustrated 

Many of the scenes are so vividly described that the reader 
can, in his imagination, enjoy the excitement of the chase and 
all the pleasures of a good camping tour. In addition to the 
vivid descriptions of many exciting adventures, this story 
teaches a lesson in morals that cannot fail to prove helpful to 
every reader. 

“ Well planned and well written. Full of adventure of just the 
right sort.” — Mid - Continent , St. Louis, Mo. 

cAt the Siege of Quebec 

Ey James Otis Illustrated by F. A* Carter 

Two boys living on the Kennebec River join Benedict Ar- 
nold’s expedition^ as it passes their dwelling en route for the 
Canadian border. They, with their command, are taken pris- 
oners before Quebec. The description of the terrible march 
through the wilderness, the incidents of the siege, and the dis- 
astrous assault, which cost the gallant General Montgomery 
his life, are in the highest degree thrilling, while at the same 
time true in every particular. 

Andys Ward 

*By James Otis Illustrated 

A fascinating narrative of the life and experiences of “ Museum 
Marvels.” They dwell in a house owned by a sword-swal- 
lower, whose wife, the “Original Circassian,” is entrusted with 
its management. The rest of the household includes a dwarf, 
nick-named the “ Major,” a fat lady, a giant, and a snake- 
charmer. The private life of the marvels forms a story full of 
incident, and one that possesses that peculiar simplicity of 
style which has won for this author such a host of readers. 

7 


Chasing a Yacht 

Ey James Otis Illustrated 

A semi-nautical tale of adventure about boys, written for boys, 
and will certainly be appreciated by boys wherever they may 
be found. The story of how the heroes, two bright, manly 
fellows, built a steam yacht, how she was stolen from them, 
and how they eventually regained possession of her, is full of 
life and is replete with exciting and interesting incident. 

“ Boys who do not read this volume with real pleasure must 
be hard to suit.” — Journal , Minneapolis, Minn. 

The Draganza Diamond 

'Ey James Otis Illustrated 

A volume that will hold its readers spell-bound as they follow 
the two boy characters and the bright, courageous girl in 
their search for the famous diamond. Much useful information 
is incidentally conveyed and many things with which few 
persons are familiar are explained. 

“ It will rivet the attention of young readers as much as Rob- 
inson Crusoe.” — Call , San Francisco, Cal. 

On Wood Cofoe Island 

Ey Ethridge S. Erooks Illustrated by Frederic J. Eoston 

A trio of bright New England children are given an island 
on which to spend their summer vacation. Here they es- 
tablish a little colony, the management of which gives them 
a large amount of amusement and at times causes some 
seemingly serious difficulties. In the solution of their per- 
plexing problems the young people receive much encourage- 
ment and counsel from the poet Longfellow, whose delightful 
acquaintance they form in a very unexpected and amusing 
manner. 


8 











































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